Mag dreamed.
She dreamed of marble pillars under the open sky, lit only by an unfamiliar moon. The floor was all one piece of smooth stone. Mag walked barefoot, like she used to over leaves and round, flat rocks in the woods of Mississippi so, so long ago, and her hair hung loose around her shoulders. Through an open door on the other side of the—was it a temple?—she could see the glow of a fire, and from the door issued a single indistinct voice. It seemed to be calling her name.
Mag walked to the door, confused but unafraid. The floor was cool under her feet but not cold. What stone was it? Alabaster. But she'd never seen it before, so how could it be in her dream, and why did she know what it was?
Mag pushed open the door and found a larger and better lit pillared marble and alabaster room with its own open ceiling, with Luna sitting in front of a bonfire as wide as Mag's house and taller than the big bear, though the fire burned silent.
Even if Mag hadn't seen Celestia's drawing, there was no mistaking Luna. She was the younger sister, yet her eyes looked older. Celestia would always look young, while Luna looked as if she was born old. Her smile was small, secretive, sincere, and her shadow spread hugely against the wall beside the door Mag had just walked through. Luna's shadow was sharp and perfectly still however the fire danced, and darker than the bottom of a coal mine.
Luna spoke.
The fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle -
Why not I with thine?
Mag approached the fire and sat beside her. Luna turned to face the fire. They watched it together for a while.
"My point," said Luna, "is that I've access to the minds of Earth while you sleep. Do you recognize this poem?"
Mag shook her head.
"It is by Percy Shelley," said Luna.
"It sounds like a love poem," said Mag. Her voice sounded so strange in this place.
"It is," said Luna.
"Getting Stockholm syndrome?"
"What is that?"
"Is this really the place for talking?" said Mag. "It feels like it's supposed to be a quiet place."
"This place is of my own design and serves whatever purpose I wish it to, theoretically; but, having made it out of your own dreamstuff rather than mine, perhaps it carries properties I didn't put into it. Is it? Is this a quiet place, Mag?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling quiet."
Luna closed her eyes, looked at the fire through her eyelids, lifted her nose to smell the air. "All of this is yours. Let your mood dictate its purpose. We will call it a quiet place, and be quiet together."
Mag leaned against Luna. She wouldn't do such a thing in the waking world, but surely the rules were different in dreams. Luna didn't protest.
Mag took soft, barefoot, low-gravity leaps over the gray sand, hair floating around her face. Luna flew beside her.
Some small, black prominence sat at the central mound of a great crater. Mag bound down the wall of the crater and then up the prominence to examine it, and found it to be an unfamiliar pony princess sitting stock still.
If princesses were Disney characters, this one was Maleficent. She had slitted cat's eyes, a black coat, wings like scythes, a suit of armor, and Luna's old eyes. Mag waved her hand in front of the new princess, who didn't move. Luna caught up and sat beside Mag, looking anywhere but at the black princess.
"Can I ask?" said Mag.
"I resolved some time ago to answer all questions honestly, that regard the Nightmare," said Luna.
"This is you."
"This was me."
"Did you really just sit here like this?"
"For a thousand years," said Luna. "I'll have the cod." She shut her menu and gave it to the waiter.
"Crab salad," said Mag, doing the same.
"Leila lina lu," said the waiter, and swam away.
"You're aware that cod is a type of meat?" said Mag.
"You're aware that this is a dream?" said Luna.
"Fair enough. I recognize this place, you know."
Luna changed into a human (the mirror of her sister, but a little shorter and with harsher features) and examined herself in the bowl of her spoon. "Yes?"
"I was a toddler. I never went in, but I liked the neon sign outside, though I couldn't read it. I asked if we could eat there. They told me it looked "pretty sleezy" and I didn't understand what "sleezy" meant, but I knew the word "pretty" and it only made me more curious. We never did go in, and now I dream about the place sometimes." She held up a drink coaster, a thick circle of cardboard embossed with the words "The Sleezypretty."
"Did you ever learn the true name of the place?" said Luna.
"I've never remembered this place, except in dreams," said Mag. "I'll forget everything when I wake up. And I'm sure it'd turn out to be a low-rent Hooter's knockoff or something equally banal, so I'd just be disappointed."
The food arrived with improbable speed. Luna tucked one of the black cloth napkins into the collar of her slinky evening gown and dug into the cod with every sign of enjoyment. This put Mag off her salad. She slid it to the side and ordered a Jack and Coke.
"There is something I'd like to discuss," said Luna.
"Hm?"
"Magic."
"Another of these," said Mag, waving her empty glass at a passing busser.
"Do you mean to get drunk?" said Luna.
"I hadn't thought that far ahead. Don't let me distract you. What's this about magic?"
"I'm afraid there is a possibility you'll need basic access to your magic before dawn tomorrow. We can discuss the whys later. For now, black red white black." Luna tipped her plate of fishbones into the bonfire. Mag sat down on the stone floor again and set her drink beside her.
Luna spoke mildly, conversationally, as if to avoid scaring Mag off. "The world of dreams is an excellent place to practice magic, I have always felt. The classic student's complaint 'But I can't do that' is inarguably foolishness here, for this is your dream. You needn't concern yourself with what is possible, here, only what is imaginable. Imagine yourself doing magic. Dream of magic, learn the feel of it, and carry that feeling into the sunlight. Do this, learn the processes, and all that is left is practice."
"I didn't say you could teach me magic," said Mag.
"May I teach you magic?" said Luna.
"Not just now. I feel so tired. I'm asleep, but I'm so tired. What does that mean?"
"You've had a trying day," said Luna.
"We all have," said Mag, "and between the three of us, I'm the one with the fewest problems. I'm being selfish by bringing it up."
"Nay. I have fewer problems than you, for a problem is only a problem insofar as it may be solved, and what you would call my problems are insoluble, whatever my sister's view. All that I love is gone, Mag, except for my sister, and there is nothing I can do about it. I shall cling to what I have left, therefore, as the survivor of a sunken ship clings to a piece of broken hull, and paddle to shore as best I can. Then I'll prove that it is possible to live with a broken heart."
"How can you stand it?" said Mag. Was that a cruel question? She couldn't take it back.
"I can't," said Luna.
"What can I do?"
Luna smiled. "You are already doing it."
Mag finished her drink and tossed the glass into the fire. "Celestia thinks she can bring back Equestria."
"To that I can only say that if hope were music, Celestia would be Mozart," said Luna.
"It's pronounced 'Mozart,'" said Mag.
"I don't care. Of course, in fairness, blind hope is how she accomplishes all her miracles. She turns traitors into sisters and mortals into legends. Celestia can be so very stubborn, and she has a talent for finding loopholes, so who can say for sure what she'll accomplish? But there is no bringing back the dead. But come; you don't yet wish to discuss magic, and, in all candor, I haven't the heart to discuss what has been lost. So, apropos of nothing and without any reference to tiring subjects or questions of rights to teaching, out of curiosity, what does the combination of the colors red, white, and black mean to you?"
"Sometimes I get the feeling you two are used to getting your way," said Mag.
"Should you respond with a flat 'no' to my question then I will drop the issue for now, but this is rather important. I'll explain why later tonight. Will you please answer?"
"All right, you've got me curious. What was your question again?"
"What does the combination of the colors red, white, and black mean to you?"
Mag, in a spirit of experimentation, closed her eyes and imagined the moon, but a different part than they'd seen tonight. She imagined them looking off the edge of a great cliff on the moon, opened her eyes, and found herself there. Details she hadn't pictured had filled themselves in, maybe from Luna's mind, maybe from somewhere else, wherever it was dreams really came from.
The fire was still there. Luna had brought it with them.
"Red, white, black," said Mag. "Weren't there four colors?"
"The full pattern is black, red, white, black," said Luna. "Don't concern yourself with the precise order for now. Now we discuss the introspective and the imaginative portions of magic."
"Black, red, white, black," said Mag. "White, black, red. Red black white. Black red white." Luna waited patiently.
"I guess the first thing I think of is snakes," said Mag.
"Snakes?"
"King snakes and coral snakes," said Mag.
"Yes?"
"Yeah. A coral snake is a secretive, reclusive type of poisonous snake they teach you to watch out for in America. The king snake isn't venomous, but it looks almost exactly like the coral snake, so you have to know the difference if you get bitten. The best way to tell the king snake from the coral snake is their stripe patterns, and there's a rhyme to remember what order the stripes are in for the two types of snake. 'Red touches yellow, kills a fellow. Red touches black, friend of Jack.' That rhyme is what I remember."
"Have you ever encountered either species of snake?" said Luna.
"Only king snakes," said Mag. "You know, they're called king snakes because they eat other snakes, including the poisonous ones."
"No coral snakes?"
"Nope."
"You seem to have some knowledge of snakes. Do they interest you?"
Mag shrugged.
"What else do red, white, and black call to mind?"
"Masks," said Mag.
"What sort of mask?" said Luna.
Mag dropped a rock off the precipice. It made no sound as it hit the bottom; there were no sounds here, except their voices. "African tribal masks."
"What purpose do they serve?"
"Oh, you know. People wear them to act out folktales and that kind of thing."
Luna nudged a rock off the edge as well. "And these masks are red, white, and black?"
"Some of them," said Mag.
"Masks and snakes. Very well. What do you think magic feels like?"
"Hopefully we're getting closer to the part where you tell me what you're looking for here. What do I think it feels like? I don't think I'd feel anything. I can't feel the aether. It'd be like Beethoven at his piano, playing music he can't hear."
"Let us discuss Beethoven some other time, when we both better understand what barriers to learning you must overcome. Anyway, I was being unclear. How would it make you feel, emotionally, to see yourself perform magic?"
"Confused," said Mag truthfully.
"To be expected. You've had no time to become comfortable with it."
"Now I have a question," said Mag.
"Ask," said Luna.
"Why did I break the wall and the phone when I got mad? If getting angry is what sets off the magic for me, why hasn't it ever happened before? Did you guys do something? Did the eldest?"
Luna looked pleased. "Ah, we approach the mechanics of magic. I'll speak in the simplest terms I can because all of this is new to you. Magic comes from the heart. It is an expression of your essential self. What you can do, as well as how you do it, is defined by how you see the world. When you broke that wall and that phone, you were reacting to something you saw in the world, reacting in a way that expressed something fundamental to your understanding of yourself and everything else. This is not so easy, and that is why you haven't done it before. It is possible you never would have performed any magic in your entire life, had the eldest not goaded you into it."
"I'm not thanking him until I see what comes of all this. So you're saying that telling the eldest to go to Hell is an expression of my essential self?"
"It is likely better to consider the feelings of the moment, rather than the words you spoke," said Luna. "Try to recall how it felt when the eldest first altered his voice, how you felt when he insulted Celestia, what the wall felt like under your hand, the smell of pine. Sift through the details, and what they felt like. This is where you'll find your power."
"What kinds of powers come from people who, uh, get their powers from getting mad?"
"It may not be anger," said Luna. "It could be fear. It could be the smell of spilled alcohol while the sun is in your eyes. Perhaps you'll cast your spells by recalling the feeling of being slightly hungry. Most likely, it's something you have no word for, or else something too precise for words."
"All right, then what does it say about me that my powers involve breaking things?"
Luna chuckled. "That depends. What does 'black red white black' mean? I've never seen that one. Not even close. I can only tell you it's inequine. The closest auric signature I've seen was of an old lantern frame, rusty and broken, once used in a lighthouse by an earth pony who carried it to work every day and back home every night. Used so often, over so many years, that it developed a magic of its own. White grey white red black, I think it was. I couldn't tell you what that signature meant either." Luna turned her head to the fire, as if hearing something. "Our time is up. One more thing..."
***
Mag woke up to a genteel knock on her bedroom door. "Dinner's ready," said Celestia. "Would you like to come out? We can talk about what happened, if you like."
"Be out in a second," mumbled Mag, and slid out of bed. She lifted her fingers to hook the hair out of her face, but noticed something in her hand that hadn't been there before. She turned on the light to look at it.
It was a drink coaster embossed with the words "The Sleezypretty."
"You've lived a life without magic," said Luna, "but today you found it in yourself, and now you must learn that the rules are not what you think they are. Be humble and be careful, or others will pay the price. Do you understand? Remember the red asphalt."
Distracted, Mag lost track of the coaster somewhere between the bed and the door. She never saw it again.
I wasn't aware that there's any other kind. What are non-vegetarian tomatoes made of?
5748241 Mincemeat is a possible ingredient in spaghetti sauce
This. I fucking love this story. Just had to tell you that. Read all of it in one sitting, now eagerly sitting and waiting for more.
5748372
One day I'll make a joke here and someone will actually laugh. I'm aware, I just thought it was a funny choice of words.
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
This is a great story and I cannot wait to read more. Looking forward to next the next instalment matey!
5748241 Beefsteak tomatoes. So there. (but now that I think about it, you might have a point - I legitimately can't remember whether or not your average pasta sauce has meat. I could swear they did, but then again, I always dump more meat into my pasta sauce anyway, so it's not like I'd notice. If so then I can fix it.)
5748442 5748960 Ah, delicious complements. I hope you both enjoy the rest as it comes out.
5748856 I'd forgotten all about that poem. I always like Eliot's imagery.
5749878 "The Youngest." I like that.
I'd argue that the eldest's power (maybe I should start capitalizing "eldest," since people do it all the time in the comment sections and it seems to work fine) is on par with Celestia's. His plans span thousands of years. He can't be surprised. He's always in a position to treat the disease rather than the symptom.
Then there's the fact that tiny actions can change the world. The first world war is the product of a lot of things, but it was kicked off by the death of one person followed by a couple of miscommunications and misinformed decisions. That's just an obvious example. The eldest's greatest influence on the world would show up in the stuff too subtle to detect. What if Gandhi's parents were born further away from one another because some old white man happened to mention a good work opportunity on the other end of the country in the right place at the right time?
Meanwhile, Celestia is so often on the back
foothoof in the show. She so often has to take a defensive, reactive role in things, and that doesn't always work due to lack of information. That shield around Canterlot during the royal wedding, for instance. Good idea given the limited information she had, but not the right answer. But the eldest would have crushed that invasion without trying, assuming he let it happen in the first place - he could just have easily arranged a changeling genocide a few centuries before the wedding by directing griffon migration patterns via an inconveniently dammed river or the untimely death of the right chieftain.5748602 Heh, I knew someone would come to that conclusion. I'll bet we've got at least one reader who's working on the theory that the eldest is Discord, playing the long con for as-yet unrevealed reasons. And that we haven't seen the true regent of Earth yet.
5750188 Huh... True, true. I suppose that's the logic he took when he killed his brother too... Which has me wondering if he's still broken over that. Celestia still has scars from just imprisoning Luna, if her reaction to Eldest's retort is anything to go by. No telling how he's reacted to actually having to kill his brother, much less being able to 'see' worlds with his brother still in it...
5750045
I don't, personally. That bathos he loves so much just pulls me out of it every time. That verse was just too appropriate not to use it, though.
(Alla Puttanesca has anchovies, Arrabiata and Primavera are vegetarian, Carbonara has bacon and egg. I don't think I've ever been to a store that didn't have plain tomato, though.)
You know, if I were Mag, I would say something like, "Regent, it is my decided opinion that we should find some other universe to do deliberations in. If the eldest of this realm can truly see the ends of everything we would try, I would prefer being outside the influence of the butterflies he could crush." (note I am on chapter 7 and my opinions could change, but that is what I would tell Celestia)
I have now finished chapter 8, and I would say that I really love your Luna. I would be able to be good friends with her. I also like Mag, although we wouldn't get along quite as well, and I am allergic to cigarette smoke.
5751020 No comment!
5751126 I wasn't sure I wanted to bring her in until around the time I was writing chapter two, but I've had this characterization of her in my head for months and I just really wanted to get it out. I'm glad people are liking this.
5750718 Tiny grocery stores in the middle of equally tiny towns can be weird as hell, so this actually works for me. Two expired jars of some type of sauce no one sane has ever heard of, five inches from a rack of snow globes and novelty wrist watches and slightly racist bumper stickers. Rows upon rows of cassette tapes. A banana bunch, some wilted lettuce, a refrigerator of terrible sandwiches.
This is why small town stores make me uncomfortable.
5751580
Sounds líke the poor cousin of the Goblin Market.
Question: Luna didn't explained What triggered Mag's talent for manipulating the aether. Was it having an alicorn in the backside of her mind?
5752075 This chapter really does need a once-over. I was exhausted by the time I got to writing that part and I'm not at all sure everyone said everything that needed to be said. Case in point.
Luna is assuming Mag was born with it, and Mag hasn't asked. You'll have to forgive her for not asking the obvious questions -- she's had a complicated day.
A single day. Haha, christ. Ten chapters, still on day one. It's a good thing this is fun to write.
5752234 No it makes sense. For centuries the ponies rejected her and her night and all previous attempts failed. She was desperate. Desperate doesn't always equal smart. In that desperatation she thought if Night was eternal that they will love it thus her. Any another consequence wasn't in her mind at the time. She is Anakin Skywalker of Equestria. the parasite route takes that from her and just makes her pathetic rather than tragic. And that a no go. thus why the Nightmare Rarity arc is despised so much.
5752208 no he allows free will. Thus when we do stupid it's our fault but he'll be there to pick us up if we let him.
5751580
I don't think I've ever been in a convenience store that awful before, but then again Germany doesn't have "fly-over country" the way the US does. So fair enough, I guess.
5752234
Depressed, lonely people do awful things sometimes, both to themselves and to others. I prefer to think of it as a particularly vicious case of mental illness, because magic makes everything melodramatic. It's hardly an unusual origin story for a villain - half of Batman's rogue gallery runs on the same basic principle. Barring any author statement either way, I prefer the version that doesn't rely on a magic parasite that is never mentioned again or seen anywhere afterwards.
5752581
I think it might be better to drop that. The Eldest is pretty much explicitly Cain-as-God, so any real-world religious debate is pointless and can only end in tears.
5753581 One of my favorite lines in the Scott Pilgrim books is someone describing exactly why a particular store is so awful: "You know how, when a baby is first born, it just cries at the sheer horror of being alive?"
That's how I feel about this kind of store, and also how I feel about anywhere that sells Halloween costumes. Just sharing! Carry on, citizen.
The first version of this chapter had Luna laying out exactly what it was like to be Nightmare Moon, and I kind of like the way it worked the "parasite" explanation into the "desperate and lonely" explanation, so I'll have to find another place for it soon. Luna's version of events is less charitable than Celestia's.
And while I don't think it's actually against the site's rules to argue about theodicy in the comments (I hope not, since I'm basically the person who brought it up in the first place by putting it into the fic), this argument is looking ominous. None of you are really engaging each other's positions, just flatly contradicting each other without bringing in a counterargument. This isn't going to go anywhere but down and I would really prefer that we kept things classy.
5753837
Be Nightmare Moon or become Nightmare Moon? Because wow, doing that kind of character study justice is the kind of thing that you would need to write a completely separate story for. "Paradise Lost - Pony Edition" is a bit of a tall order to condense into a few paragraphs.
5755408 "Be," and let me get the thing on an actual screen before we start talking about whether it works or not. I'm not even sure I properly described what I planned to do -- and come to think of it, I've been trying not to discuss my plans for this story, since describing a story I want to write always seems to drain me of the will to sit down and do it.
Worst case scenario, though, I ruin literally everything and all 200 of you are driven to a murderous frenzy. I've been waiting for that to happen, so I'm well prepared. Valhalla awaits.
5751542
Personally I see the eldest like an (rather) insane Severus Snape: a big jerk, but a sympathetic one with noble goals. At least, he didn´t act before Mag like your typical god "Bow to me and show respect, you insignificant, ingrateful worm!" no matter her attitude toward him.
Magic always has a price.
I'm not entranced by the plot, but there's a certain quality of writing that makes it very pleasant to read. It's the kind that uses simple words to great effect.
About the plot itself; it's as if there isn't one. It's not an adventure, but a midday stroll. I don't know if you were going for this feel, but that's how I view it anyway. Stakes are supposedly high, but the characters don't mind. They ponder and reflect.
That's the story so far and I like it.
Wow. This chapter was an excellent depiction of what dreams are like. Each sentence on its own makes perfect sense, yet the whole narrative is indecipherable, objects coming and going.
6019297 I'm definitely proud of some of the dream-related ideas I had in this chapter and I hope I can keep to this standard.
Ya know, it's seeing writing like this that drives me to be a better writer myself.
You and other authors who pour their joy into words and share it with others.
It's inspiring and I think people who want to be better writers should pay attention to stories like this and not be intimidated by such a good and solid style.
6519087 This was my reaction to "Twilight Sky over Canterlot" back when it first came out. I love it when a fanfic writer really tries to make something beautiful. This chapter is the way it is because "Twilight Sky over Canterlot" made me want to write better.
6520224 I'm having my own trouble with something I've been trying to write for almost 2 years, with a gigantic load of procrastination along the way. I just wish I could finally get it out. Season 5 is almost done and it takes place at the end of season 4...
6521940 Sometimes we fall in love with a story idea, spend years building on it and developing it, and then finally we've been playing with it so much in our heads that that's the only thing we know how to do.
My suggestion is to try writing something else, just a small idea that you can start and finish in the same sitting. Flash fiction, maybe: a self-contained story of a hundred words. You might like the result and you might not, but either way, do another one. This is good writing practice, and even better, it'll rinse out what's been clogging your creative pipes.
If you can't find it in yourself to put together a flash fic, then start with haikus and work your way up. Here are some prompts, if you can't think of anything simple:
- Rainbow Dash wears stallion's deodorant. Why?
- Randy Orton got his ankle stuck in a griffon snare. Fluttershy has to free him, but can she do it without getting RKO'd?
- Celestia secretly smokes.
- Discord is illiterate.
- Tic Tacs. All of them.
- Collect proofs of purchase to win a prize! Pinkie wins the prize.
- The prize is Princess Luna.
- One of AJ's trees starts growing kittens instead of apples.
- Corny infomercial about the dangers of fantasy pony drugs.
Again, it doesn't matter whether the results are good or not. They're exercises; they're little puzzles to solve. Also, 10 flash fics make 1,000 words, which is enough to publish on FiMFic.
Keep at it, publish something little, publish another little thing, then consider starting on your dream project. And it doesn't matter if your fic is set in an earlier time, by the way.
6522290
I lost it when I read that dunno why.
*clears throat* Jesus... on my speed dial. Just sayin'.
5750188
or surprise surprise, we never had one in the fist place, discord found us, took a liking to us (Humans who sprang forth from chaos and chance) and decided to adopt us