Celestia stepped up to the door, composed herself, and knocked twice. The door swung inward, revealing a room the size of an aircraft hangar.
The floor was more smooth stone, thousands of square yards of it, so polished and level that you could set a basketball down anywhere at all and it wouldn't roll a millimeter. The room, if 'room' could be applied to something so large that being in it felt like being outside, was also a mess. Rough cubes of various metals, mostly copper, bronze, brass, that kind of thing, lay scattered and stacked with no system of organization or eye for decor. Scrap and wreckage littered the floor as well, piles of steel shingles or scales, drifts of iron leaves, mounds of speckled wood ash and an apparently limitless array of other absent-minded arrangements of debris, waste, and raw material were all strewn around the space.
At the center of the room there was a worktable taller than a two-story building, and behind the worktable stood a giant.
He looked like a stocky human more than anything else, but with no eyes or eye sockets, and too many fingers with too many joints. He wore an apron of some kind of thick, stiff cloth, and something like pants. He was enormous.
Some tiny metallic thing fluttered down from the distant rafters of the room and landed on the giant's shoulder. The giant turned to it for a moment and turned back.
The giant spoke. His voice was so inhumanly deep that some syllables were simply too low for Mag's ears to register. "Cordial greetings to you, glorious one. You have chosen to make your presence known in the proper way, I see, but elected to let your most honorable sister wander. Do you plan to distract me while she digs through my collection?"
"I am here," said Luna.
"Oh? But is that not a mortal voice I hear?"
Then Celestia and Luna told their story. Mag noticed she didn't merit an introduction, not that she had any problem with that at all. She also noticed Celestia and Luna told the story very differently than they'd told it to Mag. The content was the same, but the delivery was fact-filled, unemotional, and full of precise language. Events were almost unrecognizable. Celestia had calmly observed the end of her world, checked her watch, proceeded briskly to a hospitable world, and made camp. After resting, she went back to Equestria to more closely examine its remains -
"Why did you not examine them while you were there the first time?" said the giant, whose title was apparently "sculptor," or "milord" if you were feeling familiar.
"I preferred to consider the situation in a more comfortable place, so I left as soon as I felt able," said Celestia.
Back in Equestria, Luna entered the mind of a mortal -
"Why did you bring a mortal with you to Equestria?" said the sculptor.
"My own reasons," said Celestia.
- and then the three of them returned to camp. Neither Celestia nor Luna mentioned Earth, humans, or any detail on where they'd set up.
The sculptor noticed this. "What are you not telling me?"
"I think we've covered every relevant detail," said Celestia.
"For instance, you didn't provide a name for your mortal."
"This is Mag Wilson," said Celestia.
Well, there was the introduction. She would have to make the best of it. "Hiya, uh, milord."
"And what are you?" said the sculptor.
"A white human woman."
The thing on his shoulder fluttered. "Your first lie," said the sculptor. "I'm told you are brown, not white."
"It's just an expression. It means my skin is paler than some peoples'. Milord."
"Oh, a metaphor," said the sculptor disdainfully.
"I'll try to warn you next time I'm about to use one."
"Or you could be silent," said the sculptor.
"Yessir." This was not the time to start a fight.
The giant rested his strange hands on the table, palms down. He didn't look in her direction, but then again, he had no eyes. "I have taken up the responsibility of keeping a collection of dangerous devices, ideas, and knowledge here my world, with the aim of learning to counter them, or, in some cases, to suppress them. Yes, sometimes I work to suppress the transmission of dangerous ideas between the worlds. My collectors know which books they must collect from travelers, what thoughts must be kept in quarantine in the worlds in which they belong. Mortal, can you guess which world produces the greatest number of things I must ban? You may speak."
"Humans," said Mag.
"Earth," said the sculptor.
"Yes, sir."
He shook his head. "I would say you are not welcome here, human, but how can I? So many of the things here belong to humanity that some parts of my world look like an outpost of Earth, even though you so rarely venture out of your mirrors. Tell me, when your species makes war, does it still light wild boars on fire and chase them into the enemy?"
"No, we mostly just drop explosives out of flying machines. It's more efficient. Sir."
"So I've read," said the sculptor. "Princesses, your majesties, I cannot help you at this time. You look for knowledge. For our purposes, we might separate the knowledge in my possession into two categories: those which humans have found, and those which humans have not found. As for the first, it would be useless to give you information you can as easily get from your human friends, and as for the second, I have no intention of putting yet more dangerous information within their reach. However, once the mortal has died and Luna is free, if you leave the human world and swear not to return to Earth with the information you glean here, whatever it may be, I will give you access to my archives. Good day." He started fiddling with some tiny metallic thing on his worktable.
Celestia blinked a couple of times but didn't move. "Lord sculptor, I consider myself a good judge of character. Knowing my reputation, would you agree?"
"No, I wouldn't. I heard about that 'Nightmare Moon' incident. Now Princess Luna stands in front of me, such as she is, walking free and more or less alive. This is not an acceptable risk. If you had sense, you would leave her here."
Celestia's features went hard. She opened her mouth to speak. Mag, remembering what Celestia had said to the eldest when he'd brought up the subject of Nightmare Moon, decided to jump in.
"Your sculptorness, what if I asked if we could see the books in your human section?"
"Who is spea - oh, the mortal again. Why do you want to see the human library? Everything there is already known to your people."
Mag gave the sculptor her best smile and then remembered he was blind, and that he would be unlikely to appreciate a smile anyway. "We humans know all kinds of things we don't tell each other. I'll bet one of us knew something about magic at some point in history, and, from the sounds of it, there are probably copies of that person's notes."
He frowned a colossal frown. "Human books of dark magic? I have more than you two can carry." Now Mag smiled for real. "And as the books are the property of your people, and you are an individual of good standing with my library except insofar as you are human, the rules I live by insist that I give you what is yours if you ask for it. What sort of dark magic books are you looking for? No, you needn't tell me. I overheard Celestia earlier. Planar curses, existential weapons, supercosmological phenomena, the practical effects of paradoxes, and similar topics."
"Exactly," said Mag.
"I believe I have something," said the sculptor. Mag winked at Celestia. Celestia smiled gratefully but looked worried.
***
Mag had wondered what nonmagical books the sculptor was likely to ban. User manuals to modern military ordinance seemed like a good bet. The more poisonous political or social philosophies, such as eugenics and imperialism, would certainly be there. Mag held a private hope that there would be a wide variety of religious works as well. The thought of keeping Christianity quarantined to one world suited her just fine.
Judging by the size of the Underlake library of human written works, the sculptor didn't seem to approve of human books in general. The books were held in one room, but the boxes and shelves and piles and drifts and mountain ranges of books were so tall that even the sculptor needed a ladder, and the room was so wide that it would take him several minutes to jog across it.
These were the general facts of the place. The specifics evaded her. She was too dazed to think, because the sculptor had carried her there on his shoulder.
She would have preferred to walk, but the library was far too far away. Celestia couldn't teleport her because the sculptor had banned teleportation in his world so as to keep visitors under control. He suggested that Mag ride on Celestia's back. Mag and Celestia said "No" at the same time, and Celestia announced a rule: no human adults were allowed to ride on her back outside of exceptional circumstances such as midgets and emergencies.
"Is it really so bad?" said Luna.
"Yes," said Celestia.
"I still hurt. Didn't you notice?" said Mag.
"I did indeed, but I am hardly going to ask why your thighs and backside so hurt, nor allow myself to wonder too much at it."
The sculptor eventually offered to carry Mag. To his credit, he wasn't sullen or ungracious about it. The idea of carrying a human around didn't seem to bother him; it was just the solution to a problem, and he didn't hold it against anybody, no matter how inconveniently small they were.
So Mag had ridden on his shoulder the whole way, in between his cavernous, hairy ear on her right and some kind of clockwork toucan on her left, which was apparently the thing that had been talking to him. It kept one round, black, glass eye on Mag at all times and clacked its beak at her whenever she moved too suddenly.
The walk had been disappointing. It was all empty corridors, and if there were any oil rats, Mag didn't see them. This meant she had nothing to distract her from the sculptor's aura, a musty miasma of bloodless reason, scholarship, and a joyless sort of creativity. He was the college professor whose class no one wanted to take, the kind who would happily teach a class of four people and fail all of them, who lived alone and worked alone and published books no one read.
She didn't mind his crotchety attitude, she shared his contempt for humanity, she liked his annoying bird that he'd apparently made, and she could forgive his "I know better than you about your own world" attitude. She couldn't forgive him for not being lonely. Even the eldest stank of loneliness. But as for the sculptor, what did he care that he was alone? He had a bird, a clockwork bird that did exactly what it was told and never argued back. A clockwork bird for a clockwork person.
The sculptor kneeled and Mag climbed carefully down his sleeve. She jumped off and he stood up again to his full height. Celestia alighted next to her and looked up at the shelves, and up and up.
"This is the magic section," said the sculptor.
"What are you going to do while we search, wait around?" said Mag.
"Yes."
What a shame, thought Mag, that I plan to take my sweet time. "Hey, Celestia, are we going to help you look?"
"I... am not sure. Do you feel that?"
"Feel what?"
"The ill will. The sense of menace. Mag, I appreciate your being here and helping like this, but I'm beginning to agree that these are the kinds of books no one should read."
"No such thing," said Mag.
"You clearly are not as widely read as we are."
Celestia bit her lip.
"Okay, but they're not evil. I promise you the worst books in this room are the kind you can't feel. Point taken, though. I'll hang back."
Celestia looked relieved. She gingerly pulled a vellum scroll off a rack, unfurled it, and started reading. Mag sat down on the floor and waited in silence.
Celestia rolled the scroll back up with distaste and put it back where she found it. She picked up another book bound in dense wood and iron hinges. She set it down next to her with an air of sadness after a few pages of reading and moved on to what looked like a 9th grade algebra book, the margins filled with someone's notes written in livid green ink, eventually slapping it shut and throwing it back to its proper place in revulsion.
The sculptor absentmindly pulled one of his cubes of brass out of a pocket. He pinched off a piece as if it were wet clay and rolled it into a ball between his fingers. He worked it with his yellowish, serrated fingernails - no, Mag realized, not serrated. The edges of his nails were shaped like various tools, rows and rows of them. Awls, knives, needles, saws. Nothing with multiple parts, but surely everything else imaginable.
He made a little flower, regarded it for a moment, squished it back into his brass cube, put it back into his pocket, and went back to waiting.
"Sculptor, do you have any books on human art?" said Mag.
"No, why would I?" said the sculptor.
"In that case, can I get a glass of water? I've got something you'll hate."
The sculptor made a tiny brass cup, pulled out a flask, dipped the cup into the water, and passed the cup of water down to Mag.
"Thanks, lord. Okay, see this glass of water?"
"No," said the sculptor.
"Fine, do you see this cup of water?"
"No."
Oh, right. "But I have a cup of water right now, right?"
He turned to his bird, turned back to Mag. "Yes."
Mag set down the cup of water. "Okay, well I just turned it into an oak tree."
He turned to his bird again, then turned back to Mag. "No, you didn't."
"Sure I did."
"You did not."
"Whatever point you are making, I already like this game," said Luna.
"Well, its roots and branches are pretty stubby - "
"It has neither roots nor branches."
"- it can't reproduce - "
"That's because it isn't an oak tree."
"- it's not made of wood - "
"That is not an oak tree. Is this another metaphor? I recall you telling me you would warn me the next time you used a metaphor."
Mag smiled. "It's not a metaphor. It's an oak tree."
Luna decided to chip in. "Do you mean this is a representation of an oak tree?"
"Nope, it's an oak tree."
Celestia looked up. "But you must admit it looks more like a cup of water than an oak tree."
"Yes, but it only looks like a cup of water, when in fact it's an oak tree."
"I want my cup of water back," said the sculptor.
Luna laughed. "What cup of water?"
"I want the object we are discussing back."
Mag drank the water and held it up. "Here you go. It's about a yard above the ground." The sculptor took it and smashed it back into his cube.
Mag clapped her hands together. "Right! For my next trick, I'd like a newly dead tiger shark and a tank of formaldehyde."
"What is a tiger shark?" said the sculptor coldly.
"It's a type of water dinosaur," said Mag.
"A dinosaur cannot be aquatic by definition. And no."
"A crucifix and a jar?"
"Enough."
Mag let it go. She'd had her fun.
"Where did you get all that?"
"A sculpture class."
***
"Maybe we should just go," said Mag.
Celestia tossed yet another book back to where she found it. "There must be something here."
"Must there?" said Luna.
"You still have that," said Mag, pointing at the wooden book, the only thing Celestia hadn't put back.
"I almost wish I didn't," said Celestia.
"Then put it back," said Luna.
"What is it?" said Mag.
A shadow stretched over them as the sculptor knelt. "Paravasi Mageia, by Ignatius VI," he rumbled.
"Yes?" said Luna.
Celestia picked it up and opened it to the title page. "'Transgression Magic; or, dark magic for persons of uncommon principle.'" She shut the book. "These are a collection of essays on some of the more unsavory subjects related to magic. Two or three of the essays looked potentially relevant to us, if uncomfortable to read. The rest of the book... well, I am not comfortable bringing this back to Earth. It has also been thoroughly saturated in the atmosphere of the works around it, some of which are so depraved that they seem to be leaking."
"I think I feel it now, that miasma you were talking about," said Mag. "If I left something here and let it soak for a few years, I don't think I'd want it back."
"Exactly," said Celestia.
"I'm bringing this back anyway, though," said Mag.
"Ugh. As you wish, but I should be the one to carry it. This isn't something to be touched with one's skin. Well, I suppose we're done."
"Then I will show you the way out," said the sculptor. He pulled out his cube one more time, and, with the sound of shrieking metal, he flattened into a rough dish. He set it on the floor, pulled out his flask, and poured water into it.
"You keep the exit in your pocket?" said Mag.
"The occasional uninvited guest is inevitable, but I can at least prevent them from leaving until they give an accounting of themselves," said the sculptor.
"I'll remember that," said Mag.
"Step closer to the water, if you please."
"Where is the edge?" said Celestia.
"Iskie," said Luna.
"A tricky one, but there shouldn't be a problem," said Celestia. Mag grabbed her tail. She didn't much like Underlake, and leaving immediately sounded wonderful.
"Sculptor," said Celestia, "I believe you overheard us talking before we entered. I'm sorry. I just want you to know that, while it's true we've never quite gotten along, I've also always respected what you do. Thank you for your time."
"If it helps, I've never liked you either," said the sculptor.
"Thanks for giving my species its book back," said Mag.
"After spending two hours watching you three circumvent my rules regarding the spread of dangerous knowledge, I would say you deserve nothing less," said the sculptor.
"May you always remain exactly as you are, lord sculptor," said Luna. "Universally disliked," she added privately to Mag.
They left.
***
Mag rolled over onto her back and saw the peryton. The peryton saw Celestia and bolted. Mag grinned.
"Sister, before anything else, there is something we must discuss," said Luna.
"Yes?"
"The Nightmare is back."
"What?!" Celestia rushed forward to look closely at Mag, just like her sister had. "Are you two all right?"
"We're fine," said Mag.
"It made an offer to Mag, Mag cast her out, and the Nightmare left peacefully," said Luna.
"But where is it now?"
"Earth," said Luna.
"It said something about Eastern Europe," said Mag. "I'll show the place to you on a map later."
Celestia began to pace. "But of course it could be anywhere tomorrow, and somewhere else again the next day. We must find its host and keep them contained, or else who knows what could happen?"
Mag sat up and raised her hand. "Hey, I've been thinking. I don't know if the Nightmare can affect our world the same way it affected yours. The only host it could possibly take that'd be as bad as Luna would be the eldest, and I don't see him going for that kind of deal. I'm going to guess we get some kind of magical tyrant that needs to be put down, and a tyrant with powers doesn't sound so different from one with nukes. Scary, but it's not like we don't have those anyway."
"I brought it here, and that makes it my responsibility," said Luna. "And doubly glad would I be to do it if the task involved pulling down a tyrant. There is nothing I loathe so much as tyranny."
"I also have to wonder what the consequences would be for one of your already politically powerful tyrants to gain the power of the Nightmare," said Celestia.
"Fair enough," said Mag.
"Let's finish this discussion at your home," said Celestia. She teleported them to the mirror.
Mag stumbled. She would have appreciated a warning.
"I'm sorry," said Celestia.
"It's fine. Hey, I feel like I'm forgetting something important," said Mag.
"Oh! The book!" said Celestia. She poofed away, then poofed back with the book.
"Yeah, that must be it," said Mag.
"I have the same feeling, and it hasn't gone away."
"Huh," said Mag. "Another thing to work out at home. God, I would kick orphaned puppies for a cigarette right now. That and a real breakfast. I'm thinking fried mushrooms and scrambled eggs. Can you guys eat eggs?"
"Yes, and that sounds delightful," said Celestia.
Mag took Celestia's tail in hand again. They passed through the mirror...
... and burst out of the California lake together. Dawn had come and the sun was behind the treetops. Celestia broke through the ice on the surface of the lake by flinging her wings open; water and shards of ice sprayed to either side of her. She shook out her mane like a model in a shampoo commercial. Mag lurched out of the lake on all fours.
Mag looked up to see something of a tableau. The shore was absolutely crowded with people. Most of them were EMTs in wading boots and warm clothes. A coroner stood by, leaning against a tree and shivering. John Hardly sat on a nearby gurney, wearing two trauma blankets and looking teary. There was even a small news crew with a handheld camera, though no one had a microphone. The camera's red light was on.
There were ten humans onshore, not counting Mag herself, and all of them were staring at Celestia.
Mag stood up straight. "John Hardly, get over here so I can kick your ass."
ahem.....
Dun
Dun
DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN!
Ah, these are a joy to read.
Magnificent cliffhanger, though.
ok the cat is out of the bag now. well ok I should be saying the alicorn is out of the bag.
Good chapter the story is moving along really good the plot is developing nicely lots of cliffhangers.
Harts Fire
I both do and don't share Meg's sentiments, here.
On one hand, he cared this much for a complete stranger, and reflects well on humanity.
On the other hand... For crying out loud, this is going to be a bitch to straighten out...
I was shocked and horrified to see that I'd forgotten to fav this story. The upshot of that was four new chapters outta nowhere!
Still, this is fantastic and I can't wait to see what happens next. Keep being awesome, mate.
So, uh, Celestia... don't suppose you have any memory modification magic, do you?
And John, I hope you learned a valuable lesson from this experience. Next time you encounter a distraught, manic woman seemingly intent on committing suicide, consider the possibility that she might just be going off to rescue a magical talking horse goddess by diving through an interdimensional portal in the bottom of a lake.
Heh. That sounds like the kind of book I'd have enjoyed reading back in the day. Actually, it sounds like at least a few books I did read, thinking about it.
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They had a news camera, and the red recording light was on. The signal sent back to the news van, and then back to the home station already. Even if it wasn't live, it was being recorded at the station, and it would attract attention almost immediately, so the possibility of containing the spread of information is probably already lost.
There are a few ways to handle the situation.
Celestia could just teleport away and Mag could almost certainly talk her way out of the situation (she isn't under arrest after all). That'd buy them a bit of time before they'd be hounded for answers and the g-men. The video would be regarded as a fake, and if Celestia made herself scarce Mag would survive the interest that would disappear after a few days.
Then again, Celestia was planning on meeting world leaders anyway before she met Eldest, and her purpose of 'hiring' Mag was specifically for this among other things. Time for Mag to go to work on her new job, eh? Would probably be a bad start to publicly beat a man to death on camera though.
Knowing Mag though, she'd probably just shrug off questions with mathematician answers and sarcasm to try and keep any questions to a minimum so she and Celestia could go eat and rest, considering both of them are suffering from insomnia. Or maybe not the rest part, I get the feeling both of them are used to going without sleep for periods of time. Won't do much for Mag's temper though (and Luna by extension since she feels what Mag feels).
*Celestia teleports away*
"What was that?!"
"Oh, the winged unicorn? She's called Celestia, and she's a bit camera shy. By the way John, I told you I wasn't going to commit suicide. Have a little faith in magic. I'm starving, so see you later"
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True, regarding the bit about the camera, but I figure it's worth a shot - if it's a small town and not a terribly interesting story, they might not have brought their A-game gear and might not even have any; an impression that was helped along by the indication of it being a small, hand-held camera.
Admittedly still a long shot, but, eh.
This is probably an almost perfect introduction to a new character in every way I can imagine through just dialogue. You get so much information from this little exchange. I dare anyone to read this and not have an instant disliking of the sculptor on some level.
As for the sculptor initial attempt to refuse them any information, while on one hand it seems that the sculptor has something against humans, I'm more inclined to believe that he could make the exact same argument about two piles of knowledge: that which ponies know, and that which ponies do not know, and again refuse them.
Considering that the Nightmare exists and can possess/tempt people, empowering them greatly while making them do bad things, I have to disagree with your blanket statement there Mag.
Then again, I understand the cynical philosophic statement she made. The worst books would be the ones that portray extremely bad ideas as neutral or even positive ones, and would freely convince the reader of that with no magical suggestions at all. It is as the sculptor said, humanity generates a lot of ideas, and ideas can be the worst thing of all.
Ideas can also be the greatest thing of all, and I'm not convinced that possibility that (Speculation) Equestria will be reborn somehow through the show MLP:FiM is off the table. It's possibly being foreshadowed here and earlier in the story. I think it would be a little bit of a cop out though, and the world building done is so much bigger than that idea. Then again, it wouldn't have to exclude magical misadventures with Mag. Practically any solution to Equestria disappearing would appear a cop out of some form after all, the question is how much Earth is permanently changed by Celestia's presence. Could be nothing in the long run (and with Eldest who already probably stamped out magical knowledge I wouldn't be surprised), or could be official First Contact, among other things.
I've read hundreds of MLP stories, many of which Celestia and/or Luna gets a verbal calling out, regardless of how effective it is. I have to say this is by far the most direct verbal smack-down of both simultaneously I've ever read.
I like this description, if only because I've met some professors like that. It describes the sculptor perfectly.
Interesting bit, reading auras. I wonder if Mag can do that with everyone now, or just other magical beings. She thankfully didn't have the ability to read Eldest's aura, it could probably make her ill (or drive her mad). Well it's certainly something to look forward to, should they meet again. Then again, his ability to affect things without being there means they may never meet again in person, which may be for the best.
I had a big smile on my face during the entire exchange. The sculptor is such a painfully perfect straight man, it's impossible to not want to abuse his perfectly straight replies in a comedic skit.
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Mind you, I had a bit more reason to think the name particularly interesting other than just being the edgy guy that I am. There are a lot of "real" books on magic, occultism, religion and personal spiritual advancement that center around the concept of breaking laws. Not just the silly lolevulz kind of stuff, either, but some very popular and generally well-regarded religions that you might not quite expect to have that much of a dark underbelly.
Part of it lies in the general idea many of the modern brands of occultism share that crossing lines rewards a kind of deep insight, in and of itself. Crossing the line of what's legal, what's acceptable to others, what you find moral and even what think you're willing to do without feeling bad for it afterwards. All of it reveals both that social restrictions on what you're allowed or personal limits to what consider yourself capable of doing are illusory - you've got absolute freedom of choice, making every rule you do choose follow that much more meaningful and personal, because it's something you've consciously acknowledged as justified and worth applying to you. It's actually pretty much all of Nietzsche's whole definition of what being the Ãœbermensch means, although that's really a question of whether there's a real parallel evolution of ideas there or whether he influenced occultist ideas. Aleister Crowley, the main figure behind that kind of occultism, was a contemporary of Nietzsche and probably more aware of him even existing than the other way around, if nothing else.
In the same way, "enlightenment" in many Eastern religions is thought of as gained by breaking the laws of the world, of your perception, of life, death, and the difference between those things, eventually not even considering them different from each other at all. A sannyasin, which is a particular kind Hindu mystic and sort-of monk sworn to poverty and meditation - and generally believed to develop magical "Siddhis" because of it - is encouraged to regularly spend some time meditating in the cremation pits, touching the bones and even sitting on the corpses, both as a way to transgress on social strictures making contact with death ritually unclean as well as on his own perception of death as something to fear, a source of horror you overcome by exposing yourself to it and seeing it revealed as fear of change, not of ending. Buddhism has something comparable involving an extended period of being mindful of a rotting body, either literally or as a mental image depending on the actual tradition involved, as considered necessary for preparing the mind to deal with the much more scary ideas of nothingness and true stillness.
Similarly, tresholds have a mystical kind of importance in western mythology (and pop culture) because they're both metaphorically and literally the line between insider and outsider. Janus, the Roman god commonly known for having a face on the back of his head, was considered to be in charge of beginning, endings, time and transition of any kind. He was also about as important as the chief god Jupiter to the average Roman, if the way that they're commonly used in one breath and the same context is any indication. Being able to cross lines that aren't supposed to be possible to cross is as impressive and awe-inspiring as the sheer power of any thunderstorm, to that worldview.
And, of course, there's just the general idea of being able to attract the attention of the devil, demons, evil spirits or fairy folk by doing something naughty, disgusting or sinful. It's not the action itself that makes it important, it's the fact that it defies custom, natural instinct and divine commandment in the name of obtaining the power to achieve your own personal desires, rather than live according to those of others, or even your creator's. In a society where excommunication was both a spiritual and a literal death sentence, due to how absolutely necessary cooperation was to keep everyone fed all year long, willfully putting yourself outside of the judgment and safety of the community was a pretty definite way of declaring yourself as your own souvereign, even if only one you made to yourself.
So yeah, all things considered, "Transgression Magic" is a pretty powerful statement to make, both about what kind of power you're aiming for and what you're willing to do for it, just with the title of the book alone. Assuming Ragnar put that much thought into it, of course.
"Discord." Celestia. had with distaste, the strange mismatched Chimera then smiled at me. "You know, not every world has two regents, some have more. I actually came early to Earth than Sunbutt here. Now, can you guess why I exist if Celestia despises me so much?"
"You are..." Mag said, thinking about it. "You are chaos, you are the opposite of Celestia, who represents order.... maybe Harmony? Maybe you originally weren’t a Regent but... something happened, most the chaos in Celestia's and Luna's hearts got ripped away, and you came to be. I am right?"
"That could be correct, and maybe it is, but see, chaos cares little about little things like consistence, I have several origin stories and all are true and at the same time are not. By the way, I think this is yours." Discord showed us a glass jar, a dark miasma with slitted yellow eyes was inside it glaring at us.
"You captured the Nightmare, why?" Luna asked
"Oh, because is more fun if it stays with Mag here. Little itty black Snotty made a miscalculation, Humans cannot use magic the way ponies do, the only reason Mag can is because of little Wonna inside her. So all she been doing is turning people insane, as she has no clue the way humans magic works, and trying to turn them into ponies has failed to her so far."
Celestia then bowed to Discord... what the hell? "Please, tell me, were you able to save anypony?"
Discord then frowned "No, I couldn't. That’s another reason I am willing to help, is no fun and games if I don't have anyone to play."
Did You Just Troll Cthulhu?
Jokes aside, I find flattering the Sculptor, the being in charge of keeping forbiddden and dangerous knowledge, has humanity in such high "regard". And once I again, I understand why Celestia chose humans as her best option to find how "break the rules" and bring Equestria back.
5870335
It feels a bit like being the acknowledged multiverse-champion at drowning kittens, but I supposed if you're going to do something, it's at least worth doing well.
5870357
It still makes me wonder what Eldest meant when he said that Celestia wouldn't even have bothered staying had the Youngest been alive.
5870455
Well, the obvious answer is "it could be so much worse." Imagine all the occultism stuff I talked about a few comments down, but with it actually being a guaranteed source of magical power, instead of only a boost to people's positive self-image, if that.
Then again, that seems a bit too simplistic of a conclusion to be deserved, going by what I'd consider this story to have showed off in foreshadowing chops so far.
I figured John would be waiting. I just didn't figure he would dive in after her and call the media...
Who was the person speaking in italics? Luna? Or the Sculptor? Why is it in italics? That confused me.
5871252
Luna has two speaking modes. Private thoughts to Mag which are in italics, and using Mag's body to talk through her voice, which is displayed as normal text. Mag can't send thoughts directly to Luna though, despite her trying.
5868594 5868820 Let's admit it - Mag is not the nicest person in the world when she's dealing with humans.
5868685 "Keep being awesome," well, we'll see. My prose is improving but this story could go either way.
5869334 "Practically any solution to Equestria disappearing would appear a cop out of some form after all"
Yeah, I noticed.
I'm glad people like the sculptor as a character. My problem with him is that his chapter shows up right before this following chapter, which I'm more interested in writing. My goal for this chapter was to make sure that didn't show.
5869375 This is a fascinating and well-written write up. Put that much thought into it? Maybe, maybe not - it's hard to measure - but I can say I was thinking of something else as well, namely the exact mechanics.
5870335 It's difficult to write a HiE fic without implying that humans are interesting and special in one way or another.
5870455 Draw your own conclusions.
5870477 foreshadowing chops oh my god
You sure you're seeing foreshadowing? Yeah, I've been laying groundwork for ideas I plan to elaborate on in the future, but I'm beginning to think people are giving this fic a deeper reading than it can really sustain. Sometimes I drop in a detail in passing so that a later plot point will make more sense, but sometimes I use a word or phrase to reinforce the tone and suggest that there's stuff going on outside of the Mag/Celestia/Luna bubble. You'll never see any rattling gods, for instance; I just felt the need to include it because I loved the way it sounded. Come to think of it, I should say where I got that, because it's not mine. The rattling god is some sort of force or being briefly mentioned in Daniel O'Malley's kickass book "The Rook." Whatever it is, it's never described, just referred to by name in passing while someone is talking about some other thing.
Maybe I should replace that with something I come up with myself. I forgot to attribute that properly and I feel weird about it.
5872038 I changed it anyway.
My kneejerk reaction to that comment was to try and come up with a more politely worded version of "It's fine the way it is because I've spent 12 chapters establishing what it means when italic quotes occur on their own," but actually, I decided that maybe it's easier for a reader to forget that sort of detail than I'd like to believe. That kind of thing certainly happens to me when I'm on the other end of the situation. There are very few fics I follow on this site where I can remember every writing convention the writer uses, even the stuff that makes perfect internal sense. I remember sometimes forgetting what the green text meant in Background Pony while I was reading, and that was green text, not italics; italics obviously has a variety of different possible meanings, while I don't think I've ever seen someone use green text for anything except to suggest that that idea or event has been barred from reality by incomprehensible forces (in other words, only in Background Pony).
5884456
Yeah, I'm not sure why I said "foreshadowing" specifically, it's not really what I actually meant by that. I just figured you were thinking of something specific there, from the way it was worded, not just as a generalized "everything we can fuck up without magic, we can fuck up worse with it" comment. That's kind of too obvious of a statement to be even worth making.
5884524 I mentioned in an earlier comment that the youngest's version of humanity (let it be known that I didn't come up with that name for him, but I'm going to use it because I like it) would have a radically different value system from our own, an understanding of reality and the world that'd be nearly incomprehensible to you and me. In other words, I'd have to be a better storyteller than I currently am to come up with a society that would fit that description, let alone write it.
Or am I misunderstanding you again?
5884627
The way you made a point of it to say that even Celestia would have gone "nope" and turned right back around, rather than deal with whatever would have made that particular brand of humanity more horrible than even the eldest could tolerate, may give more of an impression of intentionally hinting at something than you meant it to, then.
5884684 Nope, that's exactly what I meant to do. I meant for the eldest to imply (without actually saying) that the two-brother version of humanity was pretty much the Cenobite home world or something, because if that was the alternative to the eldest killing his brother then it must have been justified, right?
Other reasons Celestia might have came, saw, and left:
- "This species has not developed a language with a sufficiently complex grammar system and therefore cannot understand what I need. I guess I'll just pat this ape on the head and be on my way."
- "Oops, they eat horses and there was a misunderstanding."
- "One of the regents met up with me and told me to go away so that he could be technically right about something in an alternate timeline."
5885123
Seems like you don't have all that much of a problem coming up with something after all, then. Even if the Cenobites aren't exactly aliens.
Huh. He sort of reminds me of this fellow.
You know, if Mag just made a ball of magic to show she was serious about the whole thing, this could have been partially avoided.
Then again, that may cause it own host of problems.
A parallel Earth... I wonder if they know how many there are.
Alas, we're in one of the boring ones with rules and stuff. No magic possible.
Religion-shaming, really? She's just chatted with a mental parasite which would pass for the Devil or at least a demon of the Dresden-verse, been chased by a monster that eats shadows, met her world's Eldest and found him to be a self-serving, fratricidal sociopath... and she's bashing Christianity in the story? REALLY?
The Sculptor is my favourite extraplanar dude ever!
HA! I totally called the ending of this chapter!
Now for the next chapter. This is gonna be good.
Seriously?
Fucking seriously?!