The
Taste
Of
Grass
By Chatoyance
Eighteen: Imagine There's No Heaven
Grassdancer stomped her hoof again. She felt angry, and why shouldn't she? That darn Goldrivet had gone and turned out to be... to be... a fan of musical theater! It just wasn't fair. She'd done everything she could to attract him, and it just wasn't fair.
It was San Francisco, that was the problem, filled with all those gosh-darned fa...
Humph. That was odd. That was very odd.
She couldn't bring herself to say the word. It kind of hurt to think it. She never had that trouble in her human life. She'd been taught to hate those quee... uncommon... stallions... that... liked other stallions...
What the Gosh? What was wrong with her? She was angry, she was definitely still angry, she felt spurned, she felt like she had been somehow judged not good enough for the likes of Goldrivet. But... they did make such a cute couple, singing in the garden and...
No. This was very, very strange. This was something more serious than whether or not the stallion she had wanted turned out to be a... singer... in the... garden. What was going on? She should be denouncing him, decrying his... what?
Grassdancer struggled inside her own brain. It was hard to recall, it was right on the tip of her tongue, but yet not there. It was... some kind of... immorality. That was the word! Those... she forced herself to say the word, it burned her, but she managed - fa.. fag.. faggots. Those... two... were wrong. Somehow.
Why were they wrong? She had a memory that they were wrong, but it was hazy.
Church. She had been taught at a church. It was a place she had gone, back when she was human, back when she had been Grace Laird from San Mateo. She had gone to the church of the New Reformed Jehovah's Templars. They had been very conservative, very traditional, very pre-Collapse in their attitudes. That was the point.
She hadn't thought about any of that since she had been Converted. She hadn't wanted to. Remembering it now filled her with a feeling of sadness... of shame. Why? It had been a big part of her life.
She walked through the village. They were busy constructing the new house. So many ponies working together. A part of her wanted to run over and ask if she could help, but she was too upset for that. Something was strange, and losing Goldrivet had made her aware of it.
Grassdancer hadn't prayed in over six months. She hadn't even thought about god. She hadn't thought about Jesus. She had thought a lot about the Princesses, Celestia and Luna. Every time she saw the moon... goodness! In her mind, she had been... thanking... Princess Luna... for the moon.
That was blasphemy, wasn't it? Then again, it was her moon.
Suddenly it hit Grassdancer as if she had been punched in the stomach; she wasn't a Christian anymore. It hadn't been something she exactly chose. It hadn't been anything dramatic. It... just didn't apply anymore, somehow. How could it?
During her Conversion, she had experienced a dream. She barely remembered it anymore, but at the time it had been very profound. What was that dream? It had seemed so important back then.
The new town hall was casting a shadow over the packed earth pathway that had gradually developed with the traffic of ponies every day. Celestia's sun was warm, and Grassdancer felt hot. She decided to lay down on the new grass growing by the path, in the cool shade of the pavilion. She had to figure this out.
The dream. In the dream she had somehow met Celestia and Luna, she was sure of that. It was very intense, she knew that as well. But... for the life of her, she couldn't remember any of the details anymore. It was too long ago.
Is that what had changed her beliefs? She didn't remember anything like that at the time; Grassdancer was pretty sure that she hadn't gone running around the clinic shouting that she'd seen the light of Celestia or anything. No, she'd just told others, newfoal and human, about her dream, and they had told her of theirs. It was just something you did at the clinic, because Conversion dreams were kind of interesting. That was all. Nothing more.
Grassdancer tried to think about Jesus. She tried to think about how to pray. With effort, she remembered, but... it just didn't seem to matter anymore. The bible, the crucifixion, Noah's ark, Revelations... all of it... that was kind of human stuff.
Human stuff. She really did think of it that way. Strange stuff that those weird humans would do.
It was hard to imagine ponies nailing anything to a cross, even a sweater. And if some big, scary god put ponies in a garden and told them not to eat from one tree, they would pretty much not eat from that tree. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be nice.
And, if anypony did eat the fruit, it would certainly be some yearling or foal who didn't know any better; and being angry at them and throwing them out would just be cruel. It would be mean. Suddenly, Grassdancer felt a strange mixture of fear and relief in her heart. She didn't like the human god anymore. He was really pretty mean.
Grassdancer felt troubled. She felt confused and worried. How had this happened? She used to be mad at a lot of different people. She had hated a lot of people, once. She couldn't imagine hating any of the ponies here; they were her herd, they were her friends. She couldn't even hate Goldrivet and Sweetpepper, and she was really trying to. They really did make such a happy couple, and they sang really well together and...
She wasn't Grace, anymore! She absolutely wasn't Grace Laird, favela dweller, Christian, church member anymore. Worse than this, she realized she was alright with that. She was actually... glad of it. Looking back, she had been so angry all the time. Angry at the... musical theater lovers. Angry at politics, angry at other religions, angry at other sects of her own religion, angry. Just angry. All the time.
Now she wasn't angry anymore. She felt like the sun was a gift from Celestia, and the moon a gift from Luna. She felt a part of the land, being an earth pony and all, and when she sang to the plants in the garden, or to the tree by the town hall, she felt love and joy. That kind of behavior would have been 'witchcrafty stuff' back in her human life. She realized that she kind of used magic now.
That was a thought. By the standards of Grace Laird, she was a witch now. Not like the unicorns, of course, but... earth ponies had their magic too. What had Sweetpepper said? Earth ponies were like walking magic spells, wherever they went they radiated life magic. Magicians and sorcerers and fortune tellers were condemned in the bible. Or so she thought she remembered. It all seemed so unimportant now. It was hard to recall the details anymore.
What was important was being a friend, and helping out. Grassdancer got up again, and wandered over to the new construction project. She could work on this weird issue in her head, and still help!
"Hey! Can I help?!" Grassdancer shouted up at Crescent, a green and white stallion, dragging a toolbox with his teeth.
"Grab a hammer! We're putting in the last of the flooring. I could definitely use an extra hoof!" Crescent grinned and began rooting through the toolbox. He pulled out a hammer and held it for her "Heah!" he slurred, mouth full of hammer.
Grassdancer took the hammer from Crescent, biting lower on the long handle. Crescent regarded her. "Grassdancer, right? Thanks for helping out. Dragonfly's on nails today, she can hold several at once with her magic, so we can get this done really fast now!"
Dragonfly, a yellow unicorn mare with a brown mane, floated two nails out, each in different directions. It was a fairly impressive stunt, but then she had been practicing constantly -along with the rest of the unicorns - ever since the decision to try to open the crates. She was proud of being able to levitate two separate objects at the same time. The nails hovered over the marks provided in the prefabricated floor planks.
Grassdancer tossed her head, releasing and catching the hammer with her teeth, until she felt she had just the right balance to her grip. It always felt good to help out, and working here, with Crescent and Dragonfly, kind of pushed her earlier thoughts away entirely. As she hammered the floating nail, concentrating on swinging her neck just right so that the nail would be driven in straight, Grassdancer felt happy. She was helping everypony!
Soon the floor was finished. Grassdancer looked around at the fine, smooth, polished floor. She pranced about on the beautiful wood; her hooves made such a warm, happy sound on the boards. She couldn't help but grin.
"It sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?" Crescent swiveled his ears, and smacked the floor with a deep green hoof. Clomp. Clomp. "I love the sound of hooves on a wooden floor. It just sounds sa‘iid, somehow."
"Sah...aye..eed" Grassdancer tried to say the odd syllables. She'd never heard that word before.
"Sa‘iid...it's Arabic for 'happy'." Crescent began to gather up the hammers, putting them into the toolbox. It was always a good idea to keep the work area tidy.
"Are you... did you used to be... an A-rab?" Grassdancer was shocked. The green stallion didn't look like one of them.
"wa ‘alekum es salaem, that is the truth. Middle East Corporate Zone. That's where I grew up. My family moved to the North Amerizone when I was thirteen. Already knew English, though, so in some ways it wasn't so hard." Crescent had finished with the hammers, and was collecting nails; there was a limited supply, so it was smart to account for every one.
Grassdancer felt curiosity surge in her. "Can I ask you a personal question?"
"Of course. My life is an open book." One nail had rolled into a corner; around the floor was a short border that acted as wainscoting within the structure.
"Were you... religious... before? Before becoming a pony, I mean. Are you now?" Grassdancer felt nervous asking about such things. It just didn't seem appropriate, but she had to know.
The green and white stallion stopped, a curious expression on his face. "You know... I was, once. It's odd. I... haven't really thought about such things since, well, since I became a pony." Crescent set himself down on the floor. "My family were very devout. I was too. Five times a day, we kept halal as best we could, and I... but now, no."
"Did you have a dream? During Conversion? Did you dream?" Grassdancer felt like she was on to something.
"Yes, yes I did. I had a wonderful dream. In it I met the two princesses. They were very nice to me." Crescent smiled, slightly, remembering.
"I did too. They say a lot of newfoals have the same dream. Or at least dream of the princesses. Do you remember the details?"
"I did. For a while." Crescent seemed slightly sad, like he had lost something precious "I remember that the dream was very important to me. But, like all dreams, it gradually faded from my memory. It is a shame, really. I know it was beautiful and very nice."
Grassdancer folded her legs and joined Crescent on the floor. The wood felt cool and pleasant to her legs and belly. "Do you think we're supposed to worship the princesses here?"
Crescent laughed. "They are, if what little I remember of my dream, and also that which I have been told, without doubt whatever passes for 'God' here in Equestria. But I know in my heart also beyond any doubt that they do not want to be worshiped."
"How do you know this?" Grassdancer shifted her weight slightly, the wooden floor was nice, but it was also hard, and her hocks were hurting just a little.
"Because that is the one thing I can remember clearly of my dream; they told me not to. In my dream, I saw them as a manifestation of Allah, and so I prayed, and they were very clear that they did not want to be worshiped, that they did not want a mosque or a temple or a church. They had the power to tear the mountains from the land itself, the power to remake the very sky, but when we deal with them, they just want us to be polite. Nothing more. Worship is an evil, here." Crescent noticed that he had somehow scraped his cannon, just below his left foreknee, and began to lick the small wound.
"Why? If they are so powerful, if they are so great, why don't they want to be worshiped? Why is that so wrong?" Grassdancer felt dizzy, as though her world was falling, somehow. Echoes of her past beliefs swam in turmoil in the back of her mind.
"Look around you." Crescent paused from licking his injured leg and nodded at the happy newfoals going about their work, hammering together the buttressed frames that would become the walls of the pavilion cottage. "Peace. Al-Salam. Perfect peace, ideal peace. Everypony working together, everypony kind to each other. There is no hate here, there is no judgement of the kind we had on the Earth. I told you that my family was very devout. What religion were you, in your human life - I think I can guess. You were Christian, were you not?"
"Y-Yes, I suppose I was." Saying 'was' made the back part of her mind, where her past lay, upset. Her words were automatic, from the heart, and it was very clear to her that she was no longer a Christian, she was no longer religious, and there was no going back.
"I was a Muslim. If you had come to my childhood home, you would not have been welcome, and my parents would have looked down on you as dhimmi, as an inferior to be tolerated at best, to be protected from your own wretched state. Would I have been welcome in your home if I had come to visit you?" Crescent looked at Grassdancer with intense eyes, serious and without humor.
Grassdancer looked down, her ears low. "No. No, you wouldn't. My mother would have lambasted you up one side and down the other. You wouldn't have even been let in the door. And not just for your religion, either. It would'a been as much for your race as anything."
"Here, I am a green pony. You are a roan pony, strawberry and white hairs together, and very pretty I might add. We look far more different from each other than we ever did as human beings, do we not? But we do not hate each other for that." Crescent gave his leg a few more licks, it stung a little, the licking helped. "Where are all the gods and saviors in this place, in this Equestria? Do we need them here? We have the princesses, but they are neither jealous nor wrathful. They do not want our worship, and they have no sacred books. What is their only law? Friendship. That is our religion now, and it is universal here. I have met nopony who has managed to cling to what they believed on Earth. Not one."
Grassdancer raised her head, her ears back and flat "Don't you think that's a little, well, not entirely right?"
"Would you change it? Would you go back to a world where you would not be welcome in my house, or I in yours?"
"N-no. I wouldn't. Not for anything in the world." The realization sat heavy for a moment, but then Grassdancer felt strangely light, strangely glad. "You know, I really wouldn't go back to that. I think... I think I like having modest princesses that don't need to be worshiped. I think I like that better than... church. I get more fellowship just building this house than I ever got back then. And more joy, too, I think."
"You know," Crescent got up; the sides were done and soon the unicorns would be levitating them over to be hammered into place "It's a little hard to face Mecca, when the only direction is outside of space and time altogether. It's hard to take Mecca seriously, when in five years the entire Earth will no longer exist. In the place where I was born, I would have been put to death for such apostasy, if I had clung to it; good thing then that I am a pony now!"
Grassdancer laughed. Crescent was a really nice stallion, and green really was a nice color. "Maybe... maybe it's OK, whatever happened to us, coming here. Being what we are."
Crescent regarded the roan mare. "Perhaps faith is only useful to those in a hopeless world. Look!" Crescent held out his leg, the one he had been licking. "Healed." There was no sign of the scrape at all. Crescent's leg looked perfect, untouched, although a little dirty from all the construction work.
"Healed." Grassdancer repeated the word; in a way it meant more to her in the moment than it had for Crescent.
* * * * *
Caprice would not leave Alexi's hill, except to take care of basic bodily functions. She ate little, and had lost considerable weight, her soft curves rendered more angular now. Pumpkin did what she could, constantly reminding her that little Buttermilk depended on Caprice eating well enough to continue to make milk for her. Some days it was the only thing that got Caprice to eat at all.
Pumpkin wanted to try eating lunch out by the big lake to the south. She hoped that the change of scenery might help improve Caprice's mood. She told Caprice that Droplet had seen a big patch of tasty flowers out that way, and that it might be a treat for Buttermilk to go there; the little unicorn seemed to love flowers so. Caprice thought that Buttermilk should go ahead; she wanted to be easy for Alexi to find, if he should want to talk. She promised to eat something, really.
This was getting entirely out of hand, Pumpkin decided. Maybe Caprice had her problems, and maybe Alexi did too, but there was just a point where a pony had to grow the buck up and work things out. It was pretty clear to her that Alexi had just plain run away to the clouds rather than face things, and Caprice was pining like some adolescent.... well, like Pumpkin herself once had, not that long ago, in the human world.
Well, dammit, if she could deal with being a young pony with foal, if she could accept that responsibility and find a way to live, then it was about time that Caprice and Alexi, both a lot older than she was, should stop this nonsense! Pumpkin stormed off, leaving Buttermilk with Caprice; her sister might be a mess, but the one thing that still mattered to her was her little foal.
After she calmed down, she went to Sweetpepper and told him all about Caprice and Alexi. She was tired of this nonsense, and unwilling to put up with it anymore. Besides, she figured everyone in the community must know everything by now; she was not the least surprised to find out that this was indeed the case. Baskets had been discovered in crate nineteen along with the cups and bowls and such; Sweetpepper and Goldrivet filled up a basket with goodies from the garden. If Caprice wouldn't leave the hill to eat, then the food would be sent to her.
Pumpkin dragged a basket of hay, carrots, alfalfa, oats and two bell peppers back up the hill. She demanded that Caprice eat everything in the basket by the time she got back. No excuses, no whining. Eat, sister. Caprice pouted, but agreed.
Pumpkin had been so involved with Caprice and Buttermilk and everything that she hadn't bothered to learn to use her wings properly. Now she regretted this; if she had just spent some time actually building them up each day, trying to fly, she could just go on up to Cloudcastle and give Alexi the what for. She gave that idea a shot, just to see, but her wings were very weak, no surprises there. She resolved to practice every day from now on until she was a good flyer. It made her even angrier to deal with this; she had wings, real wings, and all she had been doing was sitting on a hill or taking little walks. It was a stupid waste of a fantastic gift.
Just like Caprice and Alexi, really. They had the gift of love, and they were wasting it. It didn't matter who did what or how much trouble it all was; it was love, Pumpkin could see that even if they couldn't, and the whole thing had just gone totally stupid.
This idiocy ended today! She remembered how Tyler had left her in the clinic when she had told him she was pregnant. Right now, she felt angry at Alexi. He had basically done the same thing; he'd run away when life wasn't perfect anymore. Pumpkin had seen more than enough of that kind of crap.
Pumpkin marched fiercely, straight into the middle of the village, and sought out any pegasus she could find. Naturally, there weren't any; they were all out collecting clouds or fussing with Cloudcastle. Just awesome. She needed to get Alexi down from his cloud so she could give him a good talking to. The problem was... how?
Maybe the unicorns could help, they were like all magic and stuff, weren't they? Unfortunately, they didn't know how to do much. They could lift and move things; many had gotten quite good at that, but not one knew an actual spell. Yes, there was a book of spells - several in fact - in the crate that had the small library, but the books were mostly written in the special script that only Caprice understood, and she hadn't been very helpful lately. Nopony had dared to bother her, considering the situation with Alexi and everything.
Pumpkin stormed away from the unicorns at that; this was just friggin' nuts. It wasn't enough that her new family was falling apart, oh no, the problem was retarding the entire development of the community! Pumpkin had to sit and calm herself down, being angry still wasn't helping. Darnit.
OK, what could she, like, do? She could wait until the pegasai came back for the evening graze; but she wanted to settle this now. She looked up at Cloudcastle. Hey... there were a few specks of color up there, darting through the piles of reserve cloud above the main structure. They had probably just brought back some cloud from somewhere out beyond the edge of the county, out in the desert. Pumpkin had an idea.
She returned to the unicorns helping to finish the pavilion cottage. It was time to put the top canopy on, a cone of violet fabric, this one painted in checks. She outlined her plan to them, and they were more than happy to help; besides it would be an interesting test of their abilities.
Lightning and Ocean led some of the unicorns - Boeing, Aurora, Ren and Dragonfly among them - to levitate the cottage canopy up into the sky as high as they could push it. Next they tried spinning the cone of fabric, to try to gain any attention from above. Whether or not any of the pegasai noticed, the rest of the community certainly did, and soon a crowd of newfoals oohed and aahed at the impromptu sky show.
The unicorns, used to working together from pulling the nails out of the crates, began to force the spinning canopy to swing across the sky and orbit the town hall. This got a thunderous hoofstomping applause from the crowd; by now the unicorns had begun to enjoy the effort to signal the pegasai, and had forgotten the original purpose entirely.
"DUDES! I've got an idea!" Ocean was excited, his eyes narrowed in concentration, his horn glowing brightly "Up and down, make it pulse like a jellyfish! It'll be AWESOME!" Jellyfish were the last animal to have lived in the Earth's oceans before they finally died, almost everypony had once known someone who had seen the creatures.
The unicorns put their will into the effort, but it was hard synchronizing the new motion with the spinning and the skating across the sky. Lightning suggested a verbal chant, so the unicorns were soon shouting in unison "Up!" "Down!" "Up!" "Down!" and the conical roof began to pulse as well as spin, as it danced in a circle above the village.
This won them a very loud "OoooOOohhh!" from the assembled newfoals, and by now even Pumpkin had forgotten her anger enough to be wowed by the show. "This TOTALLY ROCKS dudes!" - Ocean was beside himself in glee.
Unfortunately, in the excitement of the moment, the chant became confused, with some of the unicorns pushing "Up" at the moment that others were pulling "Down", and the effect of the combined stresses exceeded the tolerances of the straining fabric. The beautiful, lavender-and-blue checked canvas ripped right down the middle, the parts exploding away from each other with a remarkably horrifying sound. "NooOOOoooOO!" yelled the crowd.
The two halves of the precious canopy fluttered down like dead birds from the sky; one section landed on the northwest hill, the other flopped across the top of the town hall. The unicorns hung their heads in grief and shame; what a terrible end to such an amazing performance. Ocean was inconsolable, wailing "DUUUDE! OH! DUUuuUUUUDE!" over and over, Lightning just kept saying how sorry he was, and Ren invented a brief, rhyming epitaph for the ruined roof.
"Oh marvelous canvas of checkered guise,
How great our sorrow at thy sad demise
Our show of power both wondrous and strange
Apparently exceeded our ability range
Forgive us, forgive us, beautiful roof
To your glorious memory I now raise my hoof."
The moaning of the crowd was interrupted by the ever-practical Trotsky, who called the crowd to attention; the two sections needed to be recovered; doubtless they could be sewn together with a little effort, and the roof ultimately saved.
As the earth ponies and unicorns set about the task of dragging the half from the northwest hill, and levitating the section from the top of the town hall, Pumpkin spun around looking desperately to see if the desired goal had been achieved - had any pegasai even noticed?
She couldn't spot any pegasai on the ground mixed into the crowd, so she looked up, towards Cloudcastle. The tiny dots of color that had been soaring between the storage clouds above the castle were gone; she could see no pegasai up there at all any more. While it had all been a great show - albeit an expensive one - it had ultimately failed.
Pumpkin slunk off. She would have to wait for evening, when the pegasai landed to graze with the rest of the herd. She decided to go back to the hill, to check on Caprice and Buttermilk. As she was walking, she remembered her vow to start exercising her wings. She flapped as hard as she could, in bursts, until she became tired and had to stop for a while; her gait was one of walking interrupted by brief low hops of feathery fury.
When Pumpkin finally made it to the top of 'Alexi's Hill', she found that Caprice had barely made a dent in the basket of treats. She lost it at that point and found herself screaming at Caprice in a remarkable mimicry of how her own mother had once yelled at her back on Earth. Finally, Pumpkin just broke down in tears; she collapsed on the grass weeping. She'd tried so hard, everypony had tried so hard, and Caprice just wouldn't eat her vegetables, and Buttermilk was going to starve when Caprice's udder dried up, and Alexi would never come home, and the canopy had exploded, and everything was wrong!
Suddenly Buttermilk was wailing too; strong emotions always seemed to upset her, it was doubly sad because she kept shouting her one word "GAFFOL!" in between her cries of anguish, perhaps thinking that the problem was a lack of enough Gaffol on her part. She was just too young to understand anything of what was actually going on.
Caprice hung her head, and felt the strongest urge to flee; she just wanted to run, and keep running, and never, ever stop running. It took her entire will to hold still, realizing that this was not the kind of pony she wanted to be. Every moment was a gift, she told herself, even the bad ones, because those were the moments that let a pony have the chance to do something good.
She calmed herself, as best she could, and began trying to reassure Buttermilk; Pumpkin was just sobbing softly now, so the little foal was the first priority. It took some time, but she eventually got her foal calmed down; Buttermilk was no longer crying, though she was still repeating 'Gaffol', for which Caprice tried to reward her with more licks and nuzzles. Clearly the little unicorn was trying to make things better, the only way she could. Yes, Buttermilk, thank you, what we need right now is Gaffol, no question about it.
Pumpkin was a more difficult problem; she wouldn't talk. She was upset, and Caprice could understand that some of that upset was with her; so she made a point of eating the contents of the basket, even though she really didn't feel like it. At first, anyway. As she ate more of the produce, she began to realize just how hungry she really was. The carrots were fantastic.
Pumpkin looked up at the sound of Caprice's hearty munching, and finally smiled - Caprice offered her a carrot "They are just SO good, Pumpkin!", so Pumpkin took a bite, more just to humor her than anything. The carrot really was good. Very good. Pumpkin crawled on her belly closer to the basket and soon both sisters were enjoying the bounty of Galloping Gardens together. Pumpkin even bit off a small piece of carrot for Buttermilk to mouth and suck on; she paraded around with the little orange bite as if it were First Prize for Best Gaffolling In Equestria.
When evening came, there was still no Alexi, but at least Caprice seemed to be in a better mood. She was willing to eat now, and she seemed much less mopey. She hadn't even noticed the canopy spinning right below her, so Pumpkin had fun astonishing her with the story of her failed attempt to contact Alexi. In the end, they were laughing together.
"Oh, Pumpkin. I'm sorry. I really am." Caprice looked up at the moonlight shining on Cloudcastle above, then she focused on her sister. "Heh. I wanted Alexi to take on all sorts of responsibilities, and here I was failing at my own. You were absolutely right - I need to stay healthy, I need to eat, because this one here..." She gave Buttermilk a nuzzle "...depends on me. Whether Alexi comes back or not, I have a daughter that needs me."
"And a sister, too. I need you too, you know." Pumpkin stared with sad, lonely eyes. "I need you so ...much."
"You know what, Pumpkin?" Caprice had a mischievous grin.
"What?"
"To hell with Alexi-the-fancypants-pegasus! We're all the family we really need, anyway! Right?" Caprice giggled at that, and it was wonderful, because it had been several days now since last she had laughed at all.
"To hell with Alexi!" laughed Pumpkin.
"TAHEL!" beamed a prancing Buttermilk.
"Oh Celestia!" a shocked Caprice half-whispered in horror; then they were all laughing for a long, long time.
Things do seem to be proceeding apace here; in a few years, nopony will be able to tell these ponies from native-born.
Oh no! Now poor Alexi needs to stop sulking!
I like the difference between human and pony here - for all every member of their religion says how much their god is love and kindness, we don't half spend a lot of time killing each other over which one is the real one.
Buttermilk.
is.
ADORABLE.
That is all. XD
Alexi better get in gear before self-reliance turns into abandonment issues.
This Story gets better and better. Looking forward to future updates Also Buttermilk really is adorable, Looking forward to the next additions in this story.
While the story is coming along quite nicely, I don't know how much more of the patronising of the evil ways of religious views that I can handle. It seems that every time that you touch upon the topic, you apply more force to what you feel about it instead of how they regard it. It was rather... painful for me to slog through the first portion of this chapter for that reason. The ending of that part would've been far more gratifying to have known that Grassdancer and Crescent found each other to be an excellent pairing, but it instead ended upon a note that felt more like a fable in regards to how much better that their current--lack of--religious views are no longer tainted by their human past...
On to better topics... The idea of attempting to gain the attention of the pegasi via the canopy was awesome!
Am certainly on the edge of my seat for impending reunion!
54252
In the original TCB documentation, and in the original story by Blaze, the essential 'Call Of Celestia' (Call Of Cthulu?) included the notion that no human would be turned away because of any reason, including religion.
I thought about that. It couldn't work. Not as stated.
If humans entered Equestria, carrying along all the baggage they have here, then we'd just have pony intolerance, pony ethnic cleansing and pony crusades, pony inquisition. We'd certainly have problems with homosexuality and sexuality in general. Like it or not, many of these issues stem from religion, so religion needed to be dealt with.
This was my answer to that problem; for humans to integrate into Pony life, some things had to go; I've already touched on some of these - the innate primate propensity for violence and aggression, the biological errors that lead to sociopathology and psychopathology, and the evolutionary advantage of narrow tribalism. Conversion permanently ends these by restructuring the brain; these human traits are eliminated entirely.
The drive towards religion seems strongly to be rooted in the brain; humans evolved to accord events and objects and even moments as possessing identity, even personality, certainly meaning. This may have allowed early hominids to avoid regions of potential danger 'the tall grass is filled with ghosts (tigers like this area!)' but in the modern ages, this drive when codified has become a second government controlling vast numbers of people (the Pope/Ulama/Hakham/Whatever has decreed that...) - and that cannot be tolerated by a centralized rulership, which is to say a God-Princess, such as Celestia. There has to be an answer to this problem, other than turning 90% of humanity to stone.
I am at heart a science fiction writer; I am treating the magical land of talking ponies as a science fiction story. That means that I feel the need to provide a logical explanation for how things work, why they work, and what was the reasoning behind them.
It is clumsy to just out and say 'Celestia forbade all religion because it was a threat to her power, now we continue with our regularly scheduled romance'. Somepony had to say something about the issue, and Grassdancer being spurned by Goldrivet gave me that opportunity. It also opens up a delightful possibility, if I choose to pursue it, of a relationship between two ponies that as humans would have been enemies. If I don't choose to pursue that, you can at least imagine it easily enough.
My own feelings about religion might surprise you; but I am convinced that Celestia could not rationally allow religion to exist. She is... god, for all intents and purposes, she and Luna together, anyway, and it I am absolutely certain she is a pretty lonely god.
If she allowed the ponies to worship her, she would only be even more distanced from any kind of relationship; almost every writer has picked up on how grateful she seems that Twilight and her friends, for example, don't stand long on protocol when interacting with her. She's the most powerful entity in her universe, as princess she is already separate and alone. After a thousand years, that has got to suck harder than interstellar vacuum.
She cannot allow more distance, and she cannot permit any threat to her absolute leadership. Thus being 'princess' instead of Goddess or God-Queen, and thus no religions of any kind. No doubt she would equally prohibit splinter governments from arising, and also prohibit separate cultures as well; an upcoming episode (Hearth's Warming Eve) seems to deal with just this issue - racial separation between the three types of ponies being resolved to form one single society.
Equestria is about unity, ultimately, and unity cannot exist where competing factions divide society.
I think it's interesting that given the chapter title you chose, you didn't touch on the subject of an afterlife. One of the most seductive things about religion is the promise of eternal life. It is a terrifying thing, to realize that at some point your experience will cease, and relgion promises a way out, be it through an afterlife or reincarnation.
Ponies grow old. Ponies will die. As far as I know, Celestia and Luna offer nothing in the way of eternal life. I'm not sure if this would concern most ponies, but those newfoals with a religious background should at least note the lack.
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Oh, this will be touched on, and it will even be kind of... cannon. Not to the show, but to Hasbro. The issue will be addressed in the very final chapter, which will be dedicated to a very special stone pony.
YES, BUT YOU WILL NOT BE A STRAIGHT MALE FOR MUCH LONGER. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED INTO THE PONY. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.
I felt much the same way as Thibi about the religious part. I was really enjoying the story up until now, but the huge attack on religion I felt was uncalled for. If newfoals even tried to explain religion to native ponies I doubt anypony would even understand the basics of the concept. Yes, these newfoals are cut off from other ponies but why even touch on the subject of religion? Yes, you stated that you had to do away with some things, so in that case why bring them up at all? It really feels like its your views on religion and not pony views. It just seemed like a really awkward shift after all the love and togetherness of the earlier chapters, and now you had to drag in some unnecessary contention. Yes, the ultimate message in that part of the chapter was that religion/race didn't matter anymore, but what if these two newfoals had been an atheist and an agnostic? Does it matter? Is it important to the story as a whole? I personally don't think so.
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It's interesting, the negative reactions to tackling the issue of religion in Equestria here; especially since I was so relatively positive about the subject in 27 Ounces. Nopony seemed upset with me for rendering Elijah Shaloe - a member of a Christian megachurch - as not only a decent human being, but as an intelligent, intellectual one as well. I wonder why nopony accused me of preaching my own values at them then, or claimed that by representing a churchgoer as a decent person that I was somehow dragging in unnecessary contention?
Or is it that as long as I support the dominant belief system it is always alright, but if I question authority, then suddenly it is a problem?
The nature of this story is such that I am obliged to examine every important aspect of what it means for a human to exist as a pony in this new world.
This includes sexuality, personality, identity, gender, technology, science, family relationships, politics, diet, health, reproduction, culture and religion.
Unless you don't think religion is important. I would disagree; it has affected world history in every way possible. It's a big deal. Ignoring it would be... an elephant in the big, grassy, pony livingroom. Especially considering My Little Pony started its very first episode with a religious creation myth involving two goddesses.
Have you forgotten episode one already? Effectively, Equestria already has a religion; it has two living deities that literally create the sun and moon. I didn't put the religion there, Lauren Faust did on page one, scene one, open Pony Bible and go.
I am proud of the scene with Grassdancer and Crescent; I think I have done a decent job of explaining how the diverse religions of Man would need to be dealt with if the Conversion Bureau universe was real. As far as I know, I am the first writer to solve that little problem - and it is a problem. A huge one, in terms of concept continuity.
I wonder if I will get such fuss when I finally deal with sex and birth. Maybe, maybe. I haven't decided just how far I want to go with those items on my 'tick-it-off' list.
Then again, I did stir up controversy with how Windfeather was dealt with. Maybe that's OK, really.
It's just odd, for me, when I write something that I feel is utterly benign - "in Equestria, everypony gets along, racism is vanquished and the real, living gods of the place are nice", and find that such kind thoughts are somehow contentious.
I truly will never understand humans.
54235 speaking of which, i wonder what pumpkins foal will look like... RANDOM MUSTACHE!
Tohel with sleeping, I have this to tide me over
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I think the main problem people have with it is that you are lumping religion together with greed, hate, corruption, and other things that would be purged by conversion, which gives it connotations of innate evil. The text implies that the only was to achieve becoming a better being is to give up religion. You can imagine how that would rub people the wrong way.
As a fellow sci-fi aficianado, I can understand the argument here. On the other hand (hoof), as a member of the Christian church, I can't help but feel that you've sold the Christian faith a little short, since it's pretty much spelled out in the Bible that he is not malicious or malevolent towards us anymore than a father is towards his children. In fact, I find that Celestia's relationship towards her subjects is very similar in nature and intent. However! It took courage to actually address the issue of religion in the first place, though, personally, I think you missed out on a golden opportunity to explore the possibilities behind the sisters' relationship and knowledge of our world.
For instance, what if the God of our world is of the same race of beings as the Royal Sisters?
'TAHEL' aww dat is sooo cute
I admit that the cuteness of the little one is immense, but I love the interaction between the two regarding religion the most. You have captured the mood, character and the interaction wonderfully, and I can't help but wonder if something like this could actually happen. It really does bring to light so many things, including the futility of being biased.
Wonderfully written.
I was reading through the comments section and I noticed a theme: everyone is calling the last bit an "attack" on religion. I don't think that's what it was meant to be even if it did come off as that. In the world that this story takes place in everything has been warped slightly. Corporations, cities, and religion has been changed for the worse including the two mentioned in the story. Keep in mind that the story is set in the future and in time everything changes. Religion is not exempt from this. Over time the church in the story changed until it's how it's described in the story: a corrupt system run by corrupt people. It might not have any resemblance whatsoever to churches today.
Regarding religion: The author's got a pretty damn good point here. If humans came to Equestria and acted just the same as before, we'd wreck the place. We'd be exactly what Windfeather was afraid of- not ponies, but humans who do human things in pony bodies. I don't know how Grassdancer and Crescent ended up getting converted, but I have to hope that in this future even people like them would do so, and I certainly wouldn't want them to go on hating each other afterward. But they did beforehand, so something has to change. And if something changes, eventually they'll notice, and it'll be remarked upon.
In short, this was always going to happen. Chatoyance including it in the story doesn't feel like an attack, to me- it feels like an effort to show us more about the characters that make up Summerland Village and how they get along. And considering that that's basically the point of the story, I have no problem with seeing more of it.
The people claiming this was in any way an "attack" have got to be smoking something powerful. I thought the point was made very rationally and logically- in a world where everypony is naturally inclined to work together, fundamentally predisposed to craving friendship and togetherness, and ultimately incapable of violent behavior or intentional disruption of the social order, religion simply loses all purpose. All of those rules for how to get along become meaningless when everypony just gets along naturally anyway. And when you take away those rules, the things you have left don't apply. The gods of the human world simply don't exist in Equestria, so all of the rituals surrounding them don't make any sense anymore. The creation myths don't fit. Adam and Eve were not ponies. Jesus was not a pony. No modern religion has anything to say about a world of sapient ponies. An inability to grasp this is simply an inability to apply basic logic to the scenario.
Too many people see religion as evil, when in fact the whole point of most religion is exactly the opposite. I'll speak of Christianity since that's what I'm familiar with.
Anyone with access to a Bible or the Internet can search and see that nowhere in the New Testament does Christ tell people to fight with others, or to be greedy, selfish, hateful, or any of that. He does say "turn the other cheek" and such. I believe most of the messages of Christianity would be 100% compatible with Equestria.
- 1 Corinthians 13:13, New Testament, New International Version
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Transcript of S1E1 opening from http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Transcripts/Friendship_is_Magic,_part_1
*Emphasis added.
Celestia and Luna rule Equestria, and raise the sun and moon, not create. If they created anything, it was harmony, which by some tradition, the creating of harmony and order in citizens is a Platonic ideal of leadership. (See The Gorgias for passages related to how rulers should make citizens better).
Now, as to the comment herein the text:
I find this a rather gross misinterpretation of god, he--if you'll excuse the use of gendered pronouns--doesn't need us to worship him, most certainly not in the Abrahamic religions at least. His being omnipotent is part of that. Yet he loves us anyway, and wants us to follow his rules and his teachings, to love one another, care for the earth, and allow his guidance, so that we can be happy, fulfilled, and healed. But if we choose not to, he allows that all the same, but choosing to reject what is good... well, it ends badly for people, and religion isn't even needed to demonstrate that in the material world.
So, when I read this first half of the chapter, I get more of a sense that those two characters had excruciatingly poor interpretations of their religions, because they had been surrounded by people with excruciatingly poor interpretations of their religions.
Well, if I have to spend my day hovering over my inbox for an important email from a habitually unpunctual professor, I might as well use the time to read a good story in another window.
Yeah… "Shame on you for doing exactly what I told you not to do! I will cast you out of paradise and give you and all your descendants all sorts of horrible maladies as punishment!"
"But are you not omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and the creator of both us and this garden? Surely you must have known that this would happen. Couldn't you have made us to not seek the fruit? Or not placed the tree in the garden in the first place? Or, uh, maybe put up a fence or something?"
"Shut up, go away, and suffer for a few thousand years until I send my son to save your souls and cause even more religious wars."
"…If you're going to do that anyway, can't you do it now? And what purpose is served by the wars in what both sides champion you?"
"Sorry, who's the omniscient and omnibenevolent one here? Right, not you. I've got it all planned out, see. I'm going to let the world run for a few thousand years, then take the souls of the people I like to eternal paradise while condemning everyone else to eternal suffering with my former lieutenant."
"…The one you made while still being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent?"
"Just get to the suffering already, would you? The butter on my popcorn is starting to congeal."
I'm well aware that there are good christians out there, but I don't really understand how the religion and its relatives have spread so much. Apparently Rome nearly went with Isis instead; I'd like to see that alternate universe. Anyway, though, back to ponies.
Ah, it seems that religion is a major topic of this chapter. I do rather wonder how nonabrahamic beliefs would be affected.
Ooh, nice healing factor.
Wow, even the jellyfish died out?
:) I do hope that Alexi comes down soon, though.
Sudden changes in personality Grace Laird / GrassHopper fuels the thoughts about brainwashing, but she and Crescent are better now:
Believing without evidence is silly. I never understood why ponies believe without evidence.
Crescent, due to the regeneration during conversion, is intact again. I notice that Crescent is in no hurry to mutilate sexually his genitals. ¡The crazy barbaric cruel things ponies do in the name of religion!
Oh, I should've realized this chapter was going to get a bunch of religious comments.
Ah well, I'll just be brief. I quite enjoy reviewing my thoughts and nopony can stop me~
The religious (and racial and sexual orientation and etc.) segment was disconcerting but not exactly because they had stopped being religious. (I'm an atheist anyway.) The problem is that, if this changed, what else might've changed? I want to know who I'm going to become when I convert! I want the decision to accept or deny who I shall become.
I mean, I almost certainly would accept but that's not the point~ ...Though I'd be willing to give that up to somepony I fully trusted. Or at least trust more than me, which might not be that high a bar now that I think about it...
Anyway~
Perhaps even more disconcerting to me is their failure to investigate the change! I mean, they try, but questions like "Would you want to go back?" are not meaningful. They've already changed so of course they don't want to go back~ To do so would be madness!
Plenty want to become better people but who'd want to become worse? Madness~
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I can tell you exactly what changes in the brain during Conversion. The subject is explored in detail in all of the other novels - I am fascinated by the nature and meaning of 'identity' and 'self'.
In a nutshell, what changes in the brain during Conversion is:
1. The Internal Homunculus
The internal neurological map of the body is altered to fit the new form. This prevents Newfoals from feeling uncomfortable, strange, or alien to their new bodies. It allows them to function correctly within those bodies.
2. Massively Increased Empathy
Mirror neurons are vastly increased and improved, causing Newfoals to naturally care about others - even strangers - as they would members of their own family, and even themselves. This increase in empathy prevents both violence and crime, as well as psychopathy: it is impossible to allow any being to go homeless or die in a ditch (as we do on earth) if everypony cannot help but care, and nopony can rob or harm any other pony, if in that other they see themselves or those they care most about.
3. Massively Increased Dunbar's Number
Sometimes called 'The Monkeysphere' in humans, Dunbar's Number is normally about 150. That is the maximum possible number of people any human being can actually care about as people, in any meaningful way. That is the limit of interpersonal relationships, that is all the room there is within the human heart. The Dunbar Number for any individual can vary - many people have much smaller Dunbar Numbers. Some people are even antisocial or sociopathic. Not ponies! Their Dunbar Number is infinity. They have no upper limit on the number of beings they can consider people and not 'statistics'. This synergizes with the increased compassion above, to make ponies naturally kind and compassionate. They literally cannot help being so.
4. A Temporary Euphoria
Just after Conversion, Newfoals experience a very temporary and intense state of euphoria. This burst of neurochemicals allows the recently converted former human to adapt quickly to their new bodies through strong Pavlovian conditioning. They associate their new form with feeling great at a fundamental level. 'Conversion Euphoria' lasts, on average, about eighteen hours, though some Newfoals have reported it lasting as long as three days. It never reappears, and exists only once. The Euphoria works in tandem with the physical relief that having a fresh new body already grants - the absence of former pain and misery from ailments and age is powerful in itself.
5. Correction Of All Neurological Damage And Dysfunction
Strokes, TIAs, physical traumas to the brain, neurological diseases, faults in the structure of the brain that cause malfunction are all corrected during Conversion. Everything from epilepsy to psychosis is healed permanently. Paralysis, neurological blindness or deafness, any and all other injuries or genetic conditions are repaired. NOTE: Gender identity is not affected, deliberately. Altering states of personal identity were outlawed during the creation of the transformation serum by both sides, Equestria and human (although this ruling was controversial on the human side). The lower floor if intelligence is limited to 100, no Newfoal will have a tested intelligence less than 100.
And that, is literally it. That is all that is changed, beyond simple physical rearrangement to fit the shape of the new skull, and increased neuron density to handle improved pony senses.
The issue of 'Conversion Dreams' is a matter that is never truly resolved. Are they real manifestations of Luna and Celestia? Are they the result of the restructuring of the brain and nothing more? Were they programmed in by one side or the other as a means to comfort the brain during Conversion? Are they a variation on the visions that some dying people claim to have experienced after being resuscitated? Are they just an anomaly that no member of the development team could have predicted, a mere accident? There is no consensus on this matter, only endless speculation. Well, until the entire matter is forgotten about in a decade or less...
Unfortunately, having grown up in the buckle of the Bible belt I know entirely too many people with Grassdancer's point of view. Especially the fundamentalists. They take an extremely censored and altered version of a bunch of personal letters and word of mouth accounts written down centuries after the actual events occurred and call it the undisputed word of God even though it consistently contradicts itself. The Old Testament especially is extremely difficult to apply to anything in the modern age. The only thing any deity or group of deity should require from their creations is that they be good to each other and themselves. Which is where the alicorn sisters get it exactly right.
And a whole chapter later, Alexi still hasn't talked to Caprice, and now Caprice is pitching a hissy fit and threatening not only her life but Buttermilk's as well, plus making Pumpkin absolutely miserable and desperate enough to try an outlandish idea that results in epic failure? I really am going to have to knock those two's polls together