Conversation Twelve
Mag sat in bed with her back against the wall and her legs under the covers, bleary but awake, enraptured. A sea-blue sphere the size of a marble hovered in place between her hands and cast shadows in the shape of her fingers on the walls on either side of her.
She could do magic.
She could do magic.
"Class dismissed," said Luna tiredly. "Well, I say 'class,' but a class is over in the span of an hour or two, while I believe we spent the equivalent of a solid week on experimentation and study. You have a frightening work ethic when you slumber. Monomaniacal, I would say. The price, as you can see, is that sleep was even less restful than wakefulness, and now we have to go and chase down my fool sister while you - and therefore we - feel like a mound of Cerberus vomit. Thou fiend, did we truly need to work all night?"
"Yes." Mag threw off the covers.
***
Mag stiff-armed her way into the convenience store that used to be her place of work. Mr. Bachchan, currently working the counter, saw her and went rigid.
"No worries, Mr. Bachchan, I'm just here as a customer." Mag took a Monster drink out of the fridge.
"I'm glad you are here," said Mr. Bachchan. "After we talked on the phone and I, well, when I let you go, I heard that you were entertaining an important guest of some kind -"
"If this is the start of an offer for my old job back, then no, you were right the first time. I think we both know you should have fired me years ago." Mag grabbed a bag of beef jerky from the rack and dropped them on the counter alongside a ten dollar bill, giving an apologetic glance behind her at the massively fat man with the beard and windshield wipers. "Keep the change. I go to my doom and I'm in a hurry. Better luck with your next employee."
"Doom? What is -" Mag ran out the door.
"Thou shouldst have just made coffee to begin with."
"But I didn't." Mag folded the container of beef jerky as best she could while running and holding the cold energy drink under her elbow. It was about an hour before dawn and mercilessly cold out.
"You could have smoked a cigarette as well. I do not at all like nicotine withdrawal. Celestia is not utterly without defenses, you realize that?"
Mag fumbled her breakfast into her left hand and used her right to cast her new light spell. She reveled in it for a moment, delighted in its sickly blue glow, and set it a little above her shoulder, where it hovered. "Withdrawal? This isn't bad at all. It's only been like 10 hours. Now if you'll excuse me from the conversation, I'm going to eat some dead animal and drink a quart of life while stumbling down a hill. Remember to tune out my sense of taste when I get to the jerky."
"I do not object to the occasional taste of meat when it is a dream or headed to someone else's stomach, rememb - faugh! Thou spentest money on this drink? Didst thou know before thou bought it that it tasted thus?"
Mag powerwalked down the path to the lake. Instead of answering Luna she stuffed a chip of jerky into her mouth.
"A quart of life, thou called it. If this taste reminds thee of life then I counsel burning your house down, moving to another country, and starting again."
Mag swallowed. "I see neither sister is a morning person."
"What morning? I see only night, a judgment I am well qualified to make. Thou shouldst also have brought a lantern. And I cannot imagine how thou canst be of such good cheer when thy head pounds like a freight train and thine eyes burn like its engine furnace."
"I can do magic," said Mag. "Anyway, I'm off to cast a spell I've never done except in dreams by throwing myself into a frozen lake, and then I'm going to hunt down a goddess so she can yell at me. It's a glorious morning."
"She'll be angry at the pair of us, not just thee, and I am the one who must - argh! Why have I not disconnected my sense of taste from thine? There. I shan't connect it again until thou hast eaten another meal and brushed thy teeth."
Mag stopped at the end of the path. It had frozen over again. She drained the energy drink can, set it upright on the ground, stomped it down to a flat circle of metal, and put it back in her jacket pocket. Then she walked to the lake and started on the rest of the beef jerky.
The lake had frozen over again. She hadn't brought an ice pick, but the ice wasn't all that thick, this being California. She broke the ice with the heel of her boot, dragging shards out as she went.
Someone crashed down along the path. Mag let her light spell dissipate just as a darting spot of light from a small flashlight came out of the woods, followed by the fat man who had been in line behind her, gulping air. Apparently he'd run the whole way.
"Don't - " he panted.
"Breathe, guy," said Mag.
"Don't do it," he said.
"Don't do what? No, don't answer. You just keep breathing, and let me get back to this. I'm kind of in a hurry."
"Don't do it," he said again. He had his hands on his knees and he looked like he might pass out, but his eyes were on Mag's.
"Do what?"
"I bet you," he panted, "that you have something to live for if you think about it."
"... what?"
"We could talk about it," said the fat man.
"I so don't have the time for this," said Mag.
"You could make time, though. Come back up to that little shop and let's talk about this. Do you really have to do this now?"
Mag stared at him. "What are you, a suicide hotline guy on his day off? I'm not here to kill myself. Go away. I mean, no huge hurry, don't, you know, hurt yourself by trying to run again, but seriously."
"You're not?" he said.
"Nope." Mag went back to breaking up the ice.
"What are you doing, then?"
"Watch and see," said Mag. No one would ever believe him, so she might as well put on a show.
The man kept talking. "Listen, whatever you're doing, couldn't you do this in the daylight, maybe? And until then, we could talk about, I don't know, maybe all the reasons it's nice to be alive and why ending your life isn't really a solution."
Mag shook her head in disbelief. "Who even are you?"
"John Hardly. I'm new in town."
"John, how do I convince you I'm not here to kill myself in as few words as possible without stopping what I'm doing?" She'd freed up a rough two-foot-wide circle of water, black in the dark.
"Well, what are you doing?" he said.
"Magic," said Mag.
"I think he has done enough to distract you. I absolve you of all future discourtesy to him necessary to make him shut up. First, lean down and face the water."
"Okay, I really think you should come with me," said John.
"Go away, John," murmured Mag.
"As I have said, you need not worry about watching the water for frayed edges; I am a warden of the ways, and I can see the edges without concerning myself with fraying."
"I remember," said Mag.
"Remember what?" said John.
"Now concentrate. Feel. Take your time; the purer your state of mind, the smoother the transition."
John walked up and laid a hand on Mag's shoulder. "Okay, I'm gonna have to - "
Mag spun around, flung his hand off, and almost punched him in the throat before she remembered that he was only trying to help in his own inconvenient and invasive way, and contented herself with saying, "John, if you go around grabbing women, sooner or later one of us is going to turn your face into a Cannibal Corpse album cover, no matter how helpful you think you're being."
"I just - "
"This goes double for women who need a cigarette but don't have time for one. Go away, John. Just go away."
John fell back a bit, all frustration and helpless concern. It made Mag feel like she was being callous, but this was the time to prioritize, and Celestia was priority one.
"Alas. We should find him after we return and let him know you are well. Now, have you cleared your mind? Good. Breathe, breathe again, trigger, and the edge is at cobra hood stripes Pagliacci. Huh. What is a Pagliacci? Never mind; GO!"
Mag closed her eyes, let the memory of the eldest's words play in her head, pictured Luna's collection of images, and hopped into the hole in the ice. Winter mountain lake water bit through Mag's clothes and into her bones. Before her feet touched the bottom of the lake, the spell kicked in and the cold between the worlds sucked the rest of the warmth out of her in one airless moment.
Gravity went perpendicular on her and dumped her on her back. She'd done it. It hurt like blazes and there was a thick fog in the air around her, but she'd done it.
"I had hoped - oh, this cold is hateful. I miss being immune to it. I had hoped Celestia would be in view, unlikely as it would have been. Very well. Can you move? You could cast that warming spell I taught you."
"Fog?" Mag said through chattering teeth.
"The mark of a nearly botched casting of the traveling spell. It is to be expected. You are inexperienced, distracted, not entirely awake, and human. In fact your performance is impressive, upon reflection."
Mag rolled onto her side and dragged a numb hand to her lips.
"Ready? Okay. Sunflower pottery."
Memory, sunflower pottery. Spell. Mag inhaled thick heat through her fingers. Most of the icewater sublimated. The cold of the in-between lingered, but at least she was dry.
"I suppose we can practice that one. Would that I could offer better instruction for it; casting through one's hands is even more different from Equestrian magic than I expected."
"I'll g-get b-better," said Mag.
"I know. Now, we must discuss our next move. Judging by the slope of the hill, the lake is a few miles away. We could walk, though I must stress the importance of quickness and silence."
Mag started walking downhill. "Because it'd attract the collectors if I were too loud?" she whispered.
"That is the most likely result, yes."
"The collectors that collect out-of-the-ordinary things in the valley and take them to the world under the lake?" said Mag.
"I mislike where you're going with this."
"Would it work, though?"
"It would, unfortunately."
"All right," said Mag. "Want to do it that way?"
"No, but I prefer it to letting Celestia wander alone. Let us explore other options first. For how long can humans run?"
"Career marathon runners? More or less forever. Me? Two or three minutes. How quick can you teach me to teleport?"
"That depends on how good your arithmancy is."
"That would be no. And if arithmancy is what it sounds like, I doubt teleportation is something I'll be doing anytime soon."
"I certainly have no excess of love for teleportation. It's one of the most cerebral spells I've ever come across. Its uses are many, but one must have an intuitive grasp of certain mathemagical concepts and a head for fast calculations."
"In short, I should start shouting for Celestia while I walk and hope either she or a collector finds us."
"Ugh. Let me think a moment."
"Is there a way to set up some kind of magical dog whistle that lets me get her attention from a distance without giving our position away to anything else?"
"We might devise something between the three of us at some point, some secret symbol, but I can think of nothing perfectly safe that would work at this moment. Then again, we can at least narrow down the possible creatures that might find us if you send out a magical sign she would recognize, but which does not give away our position."
"The sign isn't hard, at least. Black red white black. Is there a way we can get that into the air? Maybe project it onto the clouds and hope she figures it out?"
"Yes. Intensify the light spell, change its colors, and point it at the clouds."
Mag cast the spell again, held it between her hands a moment, tweaked the parameters... and the light went out.
"Nay. You altered the tertiary vector too quickly and breached the spell's morphic field. Summon it again."
"I love it when you say 'nay.' It's just the best pun."
"What pun? Nay, it doesn't matter. Stop giggling. Thank you. Now try again."
Mag stopped walking for the sake of concentration. This time she got it right. Four patches of color shone against the yellow clouds.
"I don't think I can walk and cast at the same time," whispered Mag.
"Then stand and cast. I will watch for threats; concentrate on maintaining the spell."
A few seconds later something growled some 20 yards to her right.
"Sodding blazes, that was quick. Run, Mag. Drop the spell and run."
Mag dropped the spell and ran. After a night (a week?) of Luna telling her what to do it was getting a little old, but she had not liked that growl. It sounded happy to see her.
"Peryton. A creature most like a cross between a deer and a bird. It feeds on the shadows of thinking creatures, a feeding which the victim typically does not survive, perhaps because one needs one's shadow to live, or perhaps because the peryton's loathing for all mortals other than itself incites it to murder those creatures it catches. Perytons can fly, but they are clumsy in the air. They can run, but their taloned hind legs are not suited to it. As such, the peryton must act as an ambush predator, and loses interest in fleeing prey provided the prey is quick enough."
Mag picked up speed, but could hear something gaining on her. After a few seconds of running she turned and saw the strange, front-heavy deer thing hopping behind her with the front-legs-then-back-legs gait of a rabbit. It had iridescent feathers, green fur, two smallish prongs for antlers, and an intent expression. Mag ran faster.
"If we make a habit of wandering other worlds, a jogging regimen may be in order. What do you think?
"Talk later," gasped Mag.
"Certainly."
***
Had Mag thought less of John for being so out of breath? She couldn't remember; she didn't right now, at any rate. Her heart drummed in her chest and she couldn't get enough air.
On the plus side, it had taken less than 10 minutes to shake off the peryton. On the negative side, she'd wasted almost 10 minutes. If Celestia could teleport to the lake, she would be long gone at this point.
"Another light show?" said Mag when she'd recovered a bit.
"Yes, for lack of a better plan."
The second time had a more positive result: nothing happened.
"How long should we keep this up?" said Mag.
"You are well winded, still, so you may as well maintain it for as long as you can. I had thought we'd catch up to Celestia. Curse the fat man! He slowed us down."
"I think you wanted us to move slower anyway," said Mag. "You wanted us to get better prepared. Coffee, cigarette, maybe a tire iron for the more rigorous forms of interspecies diplomacy. It made sense at the time, too."
"You do not blame me, I hope."
"No, though I wish you'd been a better guesser for when Celestia would leave."
"As do I."
"No offense meant. You know, to be honest, I was hoping the internet would keep her up all night and she'd forget all about leaving until it was too late. I should have found her a website with Bejeweled or Tetris to go along with Wikipedia."
"'Should have' and 'I wish I had' are useless considerations now."
"I've got my breath back, I'm sick of this, and I'm feeling drastic," said Mag.
"Plan C, then. Very well."
Mag let the spell drop, stuck the tips of her pinkies into her mouth, and whistled. It was a proper whistle, the kind that startled birds out of trees and traveled for miles to bounce off of distant mountains.
"CELESTIAAAAA!" Mag called, and dropped into a sprinter's stance. She didn't think she'd be able to run for very long this time, so if she had to bolt then she'd need to make it count.
Two things teleported behind Mag. One was a 10-foot mass of black smoke with two tiny eyes glowing white like stars. The other was Celestia. She grabbed Mag and teleported the both of them away.
They landed next to the lake. The smoke didn't follow, or if it had, it wasn't moving very quickly.
"Margaret Taylor Wilson, what do you think you're doing?" said Celestia. Mag noticed, to her dark delight, that Celestia looked nearly as tired as Mag felt. The internet could be so cruel to insomniacs.
"Don't you momvoice me," said Mag. "You snuck off to do something dangerous, and Luna says it'd be less dangerous if we came with you. What are you doing?"
Celestia glared. "Luna, is that true? Is that what you told her?"
"Yes, it is," said Luna. "Do you deny it? You slunk away into peril as we slept, an unnecessary risk carried out in an underhanded manner."
"You would have done the same thing in my place," said Celestia.
"Yes, and you would have tried to chase after me just as I did, except you would have failed, because I had to teach Mag magic in her sleep. Show her, Mag."
Mag conjured her sea-blue marble of light and held it up for Celestia's inspection.
"You two worked that out in a single night?" said Celestia.
"I rather think 'a single night' does little justice to how long it took, however technically accurate the statement," said Luna.
"I see. And you went to such great lengths to do something so dangerous. Mag, I'm honestly amazed at your new abilities and I'd love to help you develop them in whatever way I can, but I wish you hadn't come. Luna must have greatly overstated the dangers of the lake for people like me."
"Is that so?" said Luna.
"Yes," said Celestia firmly.
"The Plinth of Pasithee."
"It only activates if you touch it. Do you think I'm going to lean on it while I'm distracted?"
"The Rattling God."
"What would he be doing in there? Anyway, I hear he's mellowed over the centuries. I doubt he's even still looking for us."
"Oil rat ambush."
"I'd live, and, what's more, how would you two help with that?"
"One of us might see it coming."
"I'd still live," said Celestia.
"Irritating the collectors?"
"They would take me to the sculptor, and then I'm sure we could discuss it."
"You and your discussions," said Luna. "How would you negotiate with, say, a bookslide?"
"I can fly, Luna."
"You can also die. You were not always so cavalier about danger."
"Nope, nope, please don't respond to that," said Mag. "This sounds like the kind of argument that goes on forever and, like, I'm glad I'm here and I'm not leaving, but I also want to go home at some point. Can we please skip to the end of this argument?"
Celestia smiled. "What an excellent idea. I'll just teleport you back, make sure you get home okay, and return to what I was originally doing."
"No, the other end," said Mag.
"Wherein you accept we're coming with you," said Luna.
"Oh, that end. Fine, but only because, believe it or not, I trust you both. Yes, even you, Mag, except where your own well-being is concerned."
"Well, obviously," said Mag. "I'm a mortal and stuff. If I see any rattling oil rat gods, I'll be more than happy to hide behind you and look as inedible as I can."
"Good, but that's not what I meant. Look into the lake, please," said Celestia.
"Sure," said Mag, and walked up to the lake.
It was a normal enough lake, except for the cloudy but perfectly still water and the wrecked towers of junk metal protruding out of the surface here and there in the distance. It made a decent mirror, which, Mag supposed, was what Celestia had in mind.
"Yes, fine, I look like hell," said Mag.
"Luna, we need to talk about what a teacher should do when the student refuses to stop studying. I've got plenty of tips, because I know all about that one."
Mag raised a finger. "In my defense, I was wearing concealer and foundation yesterday."
"Your concealer must be a very impressive product if it could cover the way you're swaying gently right now," said Celestia.
"That's just nerves," said Mag. "Hey, I have an idea. Instead of questioning each other's judgment, let's go into the lake and get this over with. You're in charge, so what next?"
"Yes, I am," said Celestia. "On that note, let me explain something. The world under the lake, or 'Underlake' as some call it, is a sort of repository for all the most dangerous things in the valley. It has other purposes, of course, but that's the most relevant one right now, because we are here to retrieve one of the most dangerous things in existence - knowledge. Specifically, any knowledge we can find regarding the destruction of worlds. Planar curses, existential weapons, supercosmological phenomena, the practical effects of paradoxes. And by 'we,' I mean 'I.' Neither of you is to help with the search, but to act as a lookout. Do not look too closely at the things I examine, or you run the risk of bringing something back with us that we didn't intend to bring back. Just do what you came here to do."
"Watch your back," said Mag.
"Exactly. Is that acceptable to you?"
"Yep, I doubt I could help look for what you need even if I wanted to," said Mag.
"Luna?"
"I suppose," said Luna.
"You suppose?"
"Yes. Yes, I see the necessity. Look by yourself if you must, and we will act as scouts."
"Always make sure you can clearly see my eyes, both of you. We must be able to see each other at all times. If you get lost, stay where you are. If you can't stay where you are, stay as close as you can to where you last got lost, find somewhere safe, and stay there instead. If you meet the regent, be honest, be polite, and tell him everything you can about my whereabouts and what we're doing here. We have to talk to him sooner or later in any case, because I plan to ask him permission for anything I borrow."
"Oh, I thought this was a heist," said Mag.
"I'm afraid not. If you want a heist, you'll have to go to a different princess."
"It's me. She means me."
"Yeah, I worked that out," said Mag.
"Good," said Celestia.
"Hey," said Mag, "how come we can't just go to the curator in the first place and ask him for help?"
Celestia looked at the ground and kicked at it a bit with her forehoof. "Well..."
"Celestia mislikes him," said Luna cheerfully.
"'Mislike' is such a strong word," said Celestia.
Luna pressed on. "You didn't want to use the word, which is why you couldn't contrive of any way to describe your opinion of him. Right? But I, your loving sister, saw your plight and offered the solution, which is to mare up and admit that you are prepared to go to great lengths to avoid spending a moment more with him than necessary, and have thus designed your plan of attack with that in mind. You needn't thank me. Of course, thanking me would certainly be more mature."
Celestia sighed. "Thank you, Luna."
"Of course."
"Well, Luna, since you're here today and feeling so helpful, would you please tell me where an edge is so I don't have to sit here waiting for a fray?"
"I saw one a moment ago when Mag was admiring herself, a surprisingly simple one. 'Apaitijo.' Be wary; I see no danger, but there is some strangeness about it that I haven't yet fathomed."
Mag spoke up. "I know this spell, so I could - "
"No," said Celestia.
"No," said Luna.
"Luna has just said there's some kind of irregularity here," said Celestia.
"She is far better equipped to deal with any problems that arise," said Luna.
"I've been doing this longer than you can imagine. Whatever the problem, you can trust me to deal with it."
"And, while you've demonstrated a frankly pathological fascination with the magical arts, your version of this spell is still, shall we say, lacking?"
"I just thought I'd offer," said Mag.
"For which we're both grateful. Grab my tail, please, just like before. Ready? Good." She dropped somewhat abruptly into the lake, and Mag went down after her.
Luna had a point. Celestia's traveling spell was almost pleasant compared to Mag's. What was less pleasant was landing heavily on a polished stone floor, then looking up to see Celestia looking glumly at a large wooden door.
"We landed in front of the workshop," said Celestia.
"That was what was wrong with the edge," said Luna. "He tampered with it to direct all supplicants to his doorstep. We can hardly turn away from the door and help ourselves to the collection when the option of seeking his help from the first moment of our arrival is an option. Do you think he overheard us earlier?"
"Yes," said Celestia.
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this is going to get good.
I cab see a few possible out comes of this adventure, bur the true goal is saving every pony from Equestria.
Using magic while having Luna in your head is gonna have side-effects, if Mag hair starts to turn blue I would suggest to not panic, grab a towel. Then smack yourself with the tower until you feel better or hunger distracts you.
*One was a 10-foot mass of black smoke with two tiny eyes glowing white like stars. * Can you say Grue?
Something tells me that Mag will return with Celestia to find a group of people searching the lake for her body. That's one way to make first contact.
I wonder if the Nightmare may be one of those things that was taken without permission from the Underlake.
Interesting escalation of magic here, up to usable (if simple) spells from nothing. I suppose the experience of using magic with hands would be very different than a horn. In particular, telekinesis is one of the core abilities for all unicorns, probably one of the most simplest spells, but we don't see that here. If you decide to explore it more in depth I'd certainly appreciate reading it.
Also, 'mislike'?
5834674
Damn straight.
Though, I wonder what will have to be sacrificed to make that possible.
Oh, this is good. This is very, very good. Theme, characterization, pacing, narrative voice, concept, details, worldbuilding, and the skill to bring it all together seamlessly -- dude, seriously, this is easily one of the best stories on this site. Please, carry on. I'm just gonna go over here and get my popcorn going.
Something I haven't talked about yet is how seriously good at character voice I think you are. Every character is really distinct and unique - I usually don't even need to see the name to know who a line of dialogue came from. That's way above the cut for a fanfic already, but that you've actually made their way of speaking suit each character so much, you can tell a lot about their personality just from the voice alone, honestly impresses me. Celestia isn't just described as mothery, she practically bleeds maternal care and earnest optimism with every word, but never quite without being vaguely impersonal about it. Luna's distance from general society reflects itself in her stiff-sounding diction, while her constant vague sarcasm and scornful comments drive home that she's still having feelings of repressed bitterness and insecurity. Maggie covers up her sheer fear about suddenly aliens and sense of being in over her head by being flippant and rambling nervously, which becomes more pronounced every time she's flustered.
Basically I totally want to gobble your literary dick right now. On technical merits alone this is probably the best characterization I've ever read here. The characters are definitely stylized and larger than life, but it's done so well it feels both natural and appropriate.
5834674 Heh. "Mane." Nice.
5835297 Of course, Luna has only been in Mag's head for 12 hours in real time, and she's technically only cast about three spells ever. Before she woke up, she was only dreaming of casting spells.
5835444 Your perspicacity continues to be almost unnerving. As for how magic works when a human does it, I'll get into it a bit more later. There hasn't been much opportunity to go into it yet.
As for the way Mag went from not being able to cast spells to being able to perform a couple of basic cantrips plus a(n admittedly sloppy) legit useful traveling spell, when I say "a week," I don't mean two hours a day for a total of 14 hours, like a college class; I mean 168 straight hours of not-screwing-around magic lessons. Mag is crazy. PS, "mislike" is a word, but no one uses it anymore because "dislike" replaced it. Luna is a dork.
5836051 Oh, it'll get finished. It's going to take forever, though, so prepare to get sick of popcorn.
5836375 According to my old creative writing textbook, dialogue is the absolute best tool there is for establishing and defining a character. Multiple people in the past have told me that dialogue is my specialty, so I'm lucky there. (So it doesn't look like I'm bragging, my flaw is in general prose, and I personally think I use too many logical connectors and have a tendency toward talking heads). btw this comment made me laugh my ass off.
5836843
Well, Mag have up being under the care of her Regent, and swore her loyalty to a different Regent. She is also carrying that other Regent sister inside her head.
Earth's Regent said that if Celestia turned Mag into something non human it would be bad, but it seems that is Mag herseft the one doing it.
My point is, Luna was Equestria Regent together with Luna, even if she is the weaker sister, and has been reduced to a mere spirit form, her being inside Mag head is gonna have consequences.
I don't think Mag will come out still being human after this is over.
5836843
Just kidding.
Yeah, I get that reaction a lot when I hit on people.
And I can certainly see what you mean by that. I wanted to comment on this faintly dream-like quality the feel of the story has, but I couldn't give a good example to justify that impression other than "it just does." Logical leaps and narrative causality are pretty much exactly what defines dreams, so I really could've thought of that myself. "Talking head" is an idiom I'm not familiar with. If it means "not quite an archetype but not exactly like a real person either" then I suppose that also works.
5837328
I don't think that's what he means by "not human." Humans don't have the same emotional and cultural sensibilities as a pony and would harm themselves if they tried to live up to their standards, because they'd constantly have to go against their own instincts and natural impulses. She's "making her into a pony" by trying to help Meg help herself as she would with a pony - except we simply don't work the same way. Trying to live up to impossible standards can and does destroy people.
5837527
Except that there have been human beings in history that have been close to how we think Equestrian ponies act, even if they haven't been a perfect match, and ponies are not THAT noble. They have jerks, they have bullies, they have villains, the problem is that's everything is more "soft" than the human counterparts. And that ponies have different instincts and behaviour than humans.
I don't think the Earth's Regent meant Celestia should not treat Mag as she was a pony, Celestia is quite aware Mag isn’t a pony. Heck, Equestria had a lot more races than ponies, and if anything, Celestia would find humans to be similar to griffins and dragons. Griffins for their nature aggressiveness and jerkass attitude, and dragons because of their greed and need to be the strongest and baddest around.
I think what the Regent meant was that Celestia should not force Mag to change into something she is not. Something Celestia is an expert on, see Twilight Sparkle for example, she manipulated her whole life just so she became fit to be the bearer of the element of magic.
Thinking Celestia is that naive when she had to deal with a lot of non ponies just does not work.
5837527
"Talking Heads" in regards to writing and not punditry, is when a scene is written in such a way that you could imagine them in the middle of a white featureless plane, each character shadowed by darkness so you can't see them clearly or anything they do, and the writing doesn't refute that image.
It's just dialogue back and forth. No emotions, no gestures, no expressions, they are standing still and not moving or doing anything besides talking, and the set/stage they are on has no discernible features.
Kind of like doing a dry reading of a play where everyone is sitting down and just reading lines, nothing more.
This is especially noticeable with horse words because ponies are shown to be really expressive (large eyes, expressive muzzles, expressive ears, tails, and pony body language in general). And not human, but if you can read a section of writing that has ponies in it and can mentally substitute humans in and nothing in the writing needs to be changed, it's usually a sign of talking heads or bad writing in general.
If you want an example of the complete opposite of that, I recommend this little short Love Letters For A Girl I Hate - Glory, as there is absolutely no way you can regard it as talking heads. It's a Skyrim-MLP fusion parody.
Weird, I don't see this last update in my feed listing. The only time that has happened is when a chapter was published prematurely, then hidden, then published once more.
5838231
To sum it up, the story needs more than just the characters talking, there is body language, there are descriptions, and so on.
5837573
There were people who behaved in a comparable way, but they're respected exactly because they had the discipline and mental fortitude to put their principles above their impulses, not because that's just how they naturally were. Also the word is ignorance, not naivety. Celestia is by all reasonable standards a genuinely caring and selfless individual that would make anyone want to be as good as she thinks you could be. If there's one thing she does demonstrably well, it's making people people idolize her and try to live up to what they think her standards are, even without ever actually meaning to. The problem with that is that she is still an interdimensional alien space-pony and literally didn't know jack shit about humans until like two days ago.
It's not about nobility, it's that what might (for example) be justified anger to a human could very well be violently emotionally disturbed by the standards of any other random species. Ponies are descended from herd-forming grazers, we are former tree-dwelling fructivores turned semi-eusocial foragers and opportunists. We can't have the exact same psychological makeup because our minds literally run on completely different hardware and usage specifications. Bonobos and chimpanzees are like evil mirror universe versions of each other and they're more closely related to each other than even Earth primates and equines ever were. Good intentions wouldn't prevent the asphyxiation that would result if Celestia ever decided to make everyone a nice Poison Ivy salad for dinner - which just so happens to be a major allergen and blister agent for humans in specific and edible to pretty much everything else. Except instead of poisonous weeds she'd be feeding her poisonous ideals, to clarify the analogy.
By the same virtue, why would any reasonable person expect humans to be like birdcat mutants or giant firebreathing OCD lizard in any way?
5838575
I was just pointing out Celestia knows how to deal with non ponies, even if she had never dealt with humans before. And the idea of every one wants to live to Celestia standard? Is more like she was the ruler, and ponies were also scared of her. Ponies who hardly new Celestia before were terrified of what punishment she would do to them.
And while Griffons and dragons are not exactly humans, they are the closest Celestia ever got before. So again, the idea that she would treat Mag like a pony is stupid.
And I was also pointing out that using Magic, becoming the servant of a Regent from a dead universe, and having said Regent sister inside the head will end with Mag becoming non human, even if its not Celestia doing it.
After all Luna might be the less powerful sister, but she is also a Regent, that’s gotta have consequences.
First rule of magic? Magic always has a price.
5838935
I think what we have here is a failure to communicate. Again, the problem isn't necessarily anything Celestia wants or means to do. The problem could be simply in how Meg sees her. She's already influencing her just by being there and blatantly being an impossibly ideal and majestic role model come to actual horsey-shaped life. If the character's motivations what I think they are, she won't be able to watch Celestia be inhumanly principled and compassionate and not try to be just as good, especially if she can't possibly succeed due to simply being constitutionally incapable of it.
Although I suppose the whole scene with the grocery clerk was her doing her whole "leading the horse to the friendship-flavoured water and then force-feeding it with a pressure hose" shtick, so you can't quite claim she wouldn't even try.
5839162
Or it could just be that that grocery store was just conveniently located. Mag expressed that she really didn't give a damn about her job and expected to be fired at any moment before, so her just going to the same store is not that big deal for her.
5839300
I mean the store with the gay cashier, who she visibly didn't have any interest in getting to know better but was pressured into regardless.
5839481
A lot of people does things due to being pressured to do them by others. At that point Mag did not care enough to do it for impressing Celestia, she was mostly curious.
5840527
I just realized that I was being unclear about who I meant by "her." That part of the comment was supposed to be about Celestia, not Meg, and I was referring to you saying that she wouldn't try to treat her like a pony. Making Meg do one of those silly friendship exercises certainly counts as that, I think. Admittedly that was before Cain warned her that she would harm Meg by it if she continued, but being in on an alien planet and dealing with a species she had known for barely a few hours certainly didn't stop her from trying.
5840708
That works, I guess even a being like Celestia would default to treat others like her little ponies due to the whole trauma of losing her world.
But my other point is that Mag is changing herseft by choice, not because Celestia is doing it. No one forced her to save Luna, and if was her choice to use magic or not.
So far Mag:
A) Renounced her Regent and put herseft in service of another regent.
B) Got the another regent sister stuck in her head.
C) Is using magic.
D) Went to other worlds.
All of these things will change Mag, making her less human.
Heck, the next spell she learns from Luna will probably be a "Notice me not" spell so humans ignore her doing weird things.
5848593
That's all true, but not the kind of changes I consider relevant in regards to that particular warning. Magic is apparently just a skill like any other (or she couldn't learn it at all) and where or who she works for has nothing to do with what she is.
Regardless, my point was that she can't become any more or less human than she is by nature, which is why she could "break" from it at all. You can't bend your arms like an octopus, no matter how much you try, without snapping your bones. Even if you find a way to successfully imitate anything this allows them to do, they still won't spontaneously turn into rubber from it.
5848657
Humans are if anything, very adaptable, but they never stop being human. As they say in the anime Slayers, humans are beings of twilight, stuck between darkness at light, that's one of the reasons why they have almost unlimited potential.
And magic is not just any skill like any other, first rule of magic? Magic has a price. Also Mag is not learning magic from a human Mag, she is learning it from a magical pony princess stuck in her head. That's gonna have consequences. a mere mortal cannot contain one of the two rules of a dead world inside her head and don't expect some changes.
Even if Luna acts like a perfect lady and doesn't try anything to hurt Mag, not everything we do is by conscious thought. Unconsciously, Luna wants to have her body back, will that affect Mag? Only time will tell.
Also, just because Mag never stops thinking like a human it doesn’t meant she will always look like one.
5848792
Animes aren't a valid authority on human nature and magic doesn't actually exist, so it has exactly as much of a price as the author says it does. Since nothing was stated to that effect, I assume that it doesn't and you have no reason to say that as if it was just a factual given.
And looking nonhuman isn't the same as not actually being human. It's a state of mind more than an outward appearance.
5848792
The heck are you talking about? First rule of magic is people are stupid.
5864144
Thank you! I didn't want to be the one saying it, because I don't think I could've resisted making bad jokes about rising "things" and evil not-chickens for the next dozen chapters.
5864144
Rule zero of magic: Don't use it!
5864796
Rule -1 of Magic: Error: Access violation in module metaphysics at address 0xEHEIEH, your universe must be restarted. If the problem persists, remove or disable any newly installed Regents or cosmological constants and contact your Prime Mover.
5866408
The whole "Magic has a price" stuff was not invented by me.
5866428
No reason not to make fun of it anyway, especially when it's a good setup for an integer underflow gag. Oldie but goodie.
5866408 "But I lost the install disc!" Celestia wailed.
5866478
Actually kind of makes me wonder if whatever fucked up her universe might be contagious, now that I think about it. She's immune to whatever caused it, which means she'd be a natural reservoir and possibly the vector that carried it there to begin with. Typhoid Mary of Universes is a pretty neat character concept.
5866478
******
The ADMIN glared at Celestia.
"Well, then we will have to do a backup, format and do a fresh install, then restore or port what we can from the backup. Is gonna take a while, and is gonna cost you."
"How much?" Mag asked
"Oh, you are Celestia new intern?" The ADMIN said, as if he had just noticed Mag, and apparently he just had. "I remember when I was an intern myself, granted, the position is not the same. Anyway, you got a backup of little Luna if your head, right? I will need to take a look at that."
"Absolutely not!" Luna said using Mag mouth
"Then, I guess I could just upgrade your current body, as it is, it won't last." The ADMIN started to examine Mag ignoring everything else, and Mag wisely decided to shut up. This guy was not a regent, he was the one who helped Regents fix their mess ups. And for some kind of supergod or whatever, it was not so bad, besides the fact it tended to ignore anything he was not interested in.
"Mmm, interesting, magic capable carbon based organic, might actually be able to pull this up without that much trouble." The ADMIN stick his head inside Mag chest, it felt cold, then removed it, Mag looked, nothing seemed different, not did she had a hole in her chest.
"That will do for now. Now, please leave while I talk with Celestia about grown up stuff."
Despite herseft, Mag did just that, and the door closed behind her, leaving Celestia to talk with the ADMIN.
"What the hell did he just do to me?"
"He actually helped us. But the growing pains are gonna be worse than pulling out wise teeth without anaesthetic. Oh, and he is far from finished, thankfully once we are full upgraded is only a check up every ten thousand years."
Mag almost asked, but controlled herseft. What was going on? At first it was all magic, gods, multiverse and that, but then they meet the ADMIN and it seemed like magic was actually a way for lesser beings to rationally the code that formed the multi universe.
"That’s not far from the truth. Even Celestia has trouble to see Magic in those terms, to an ADMIN, a Regent is basically a computer user who keeps messing up and has no clue about what she or he is doing."
Mag thought about the Regents she knew, and was forced to agree. Earth regent had killed his brother, breaking Earth and forcing it to work at suboptimal conditions. Celestia apparently had forgot to keep her own universe propriety maintained, and that guy... had reduced his universe to a storehouse for dangerous artifacts since it was actually easier than ruling a real universe.
"You know... of all the things I was expecting... system crash was not one of the things I figured out as the reason why Equestria was gone."
"Well, you honestly know little about this, but it makes sense, if Equestria was truly gone, it would have taken my sister out in it. Instead we are just... as they say... in a minimalist safe mode."
5866601
Not quite as funny a fakeout as concluding that Celestia had Cosmic Chlamydia of Annihilation all along and just won't admit to it because it's a really embarrassing condition for a Regent to contract, but still, something to keep around as an alternate ending option.
Seeing as I came across this line at almost 1:30am when I should have started trying to go to sleep hours ago... Yeah I cracked up like a madman
I also love the exchanges you have between Celestial, Luna, and Mag throughout this chapter.
6442441 If you went to bed, your sense of humor would recalibrate and you wouldn't have to laugh at random things.
go to bed
6442600 I think I probably would have still laughed my head off at that line anytime. Being a lifelong major insomniac it just rang so unbelievably true.
I finally was able to pry my eyes off the story here and switch over to an audio book to lull me to sleep about an hour after leaving the above comment.
Words cannot encompass how much I love the valley of mirrors. It's like China Mieville somehow managed to crash the city of sigil into the wood between the worlds, and this is the result after the dust settled.
A surreally poetic magic system, beautifully complex characters, and every chapter has had several legit laugh out loud moments, this is shaping up to be one of my favorite works of urban fantasy. Please say you've written other stuff I can devour, be it non pony fic or original fiction, you've got one of the best ways with words that I've read.
6700293 Ooh, someone used the name "urban fantasy." That's a genre I aspire to, around here. Mieville is rad.
I haven't really written anything else. Not recently, definitely. Back in the summer after season one I wrote a short where Luna and Scratch basically reenact "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," but I ended up disliking it and never bothered to post it here. I wrote a non-pony story about a ballerina for a creative writing class, and the main character is, in retrospect, a precursor to Mag ("woman with a chip on her shoulder" is my default main character), but I don't have that saved on a computer anywhere and I don't really want to type a hard copy into a text file.
Mag smirked as a trollish entity quickly zipped into her brain, "But John! I HARDLY know you!"
John was all like >:| "Forget what I said. Take the plunge." He stomped off as Alondro the Troll King zipped out again giggling fiendishly.
You're missing an ending quote on this paragraph.
(If you want me to stop mentioning things as I see them, please let me know -- I tend to proof as I read. I'm really enjoying the story so far.)
Glorious. Simply glorious. Spark of life that tastes like death. I know, I have lived it.
Shame there's place for only one person in such a story.