The Last Chapter For Sure, This Time: Celestial Seasoning
Part I—Insipid Inception
Mount Canter, a desolate and uninviting spire, loomed like a grim gray tower over the landscape of the newly-founded lands of Equestria. Though one might think that a unicorn would admire its similarity to a horn, Clover the Clever had always found it and its icy peak to be an uncomfortable reminder of the frigid lands they had left behind.
Yet she was even now being borne towards the lonely mountain by an armed and armored team of flying Pegasus charioteers, who had brought an urgent message from Commander Hurricane; a message that had been frustratingly sparse on details. By Clover’s side was the irrepressible Chancellor Puddinghead, who was cheerfully letting her tongue flap in the rushing wind.
As the chariot drew closer to the mountain, a dot streaked through the sky, approaching with great speed. Soon, Commander Hurricane had matched speeds and was flying alongside the chariot, nimbly dodging Puddinghead’s saliva trail at the last second. “Regent Clover, Chancellor Puddinghead,” she said. “About time you got here!”
Clover bit her lip. She’d been appointed regent after Princess Platinum’s disappearance, and she was just managing to hold things together. However, without Platinum’s power and expertise, it had been much harder for the unicorns to raise the sun that morning, and Clover was feeling more irritable than usual. She cleared her throat and called into the wind. “Commander Hurricane, you know that we are all very busy in the search for Princess Platinum and the others…”
Hurricane sighed. “Look, Regent Clover, I’m just as busy as you. We’d never let a fellow soldier down. We were immediately on the trail of Private Pansy…!”
Clover raised precisely one eyebrow.
“…Well, just as soon as we all stopped laughing. The point is, we’ve been searching around the mountain since we heard Chancellor Puddinghead’s story of where the three of them, uh, went, and… uh… we have a development.”
“Have you found them?”
“Uh, no, not really…”
“Then please don’t waste more of our time.”
Hurricane rolled her eyes. “I am not wasting your time; I’m saving your time. You’re just not gonna believe it until you see it for yourself, so words are pointless. Hang on, we’re almost there!” She swiftly darted ahead, flying off around the curved side of the mountain. The Pegasus team sped up to keep pace.
As they closed on in on their destination, Clover drew a breath of astonishment. Mount Canter had been marred on one face by a small crater, a divot about the size of a large house, and there was an odd gray object at its center. The crater was shaped roughly like a bowl turned on its side, and the Pegasus charioteers landed on the lowest surface, near the rim. They stood at attention and readied their spears, warily looking around them.
Clover stepped carefully onto the blackened and shattered rock of the crater, and looked uphill to the pile of gray rock at the crater’s center. It had been built into a rude shelter that nonetheless had rudimentary crenelations, and something that was either an overdone chimney or the beginnings of a mage’s tower. And all around it, etched into the crater’s floor and walls, were radiant circles of scribbled lines that glowed a dull orange even in the daylight. Smaller lines circumscribed and wove around the main lines, annotating them in Talmudic proliferation.
Puddinghead glanced over the whole pattern. “Oooh, a maze! I love mazes!” She dashed into it, running only in the spaces between the lines. Clover closely inspected a line that ended at her feet, and gasped in delighted surprise. It was a mathematical equation! She started to read it, following its path as it swirled and swerved in towards the shelter, her expression growing more and more concerned.
By the time she finally reached the line’s end, at one of the unfinished walls of the crude stone shelter, there were worry-wrinkles between her eyebrows. “The inverse cube of the thaumic radiative constant is certainly not… pebblecheeks!” she exclaimed in irritation. “What does this even mean?” She raised her head and suddenly found herself nose-to-nose with a peculiar equine presence; a very large white unicorn pony of slender proportions, white-coated with a close-cropped mane of light-green and blue, who had stuck her head over the wall. Her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk’s, and a small string of grayish drool hung from the corner of her lip.
Clover politely but cautiously sniffed the stranger’s breath; it smelled like mud and worms. “Uh… hello?” she said.
The stranger turned her head swiftly, and spat a huge wet mouthful of rocks onto the unfinished wall, filling in a gap. She turned back to Clover with an odd expression—perhaps just a hint of an enigmatic smile—then hopped into the air, spreading a pair of wings, and alighting gently on the outside of the wall.
Clover sat down heavily. Wings and a horn… a creature of pure mythology, but present in the flesh. As she stared up at the being in shock, her head was suddenly and firmly turned aside by Puddinghead, who stared solemnly into her eyes.
“You got to the center first, but you walked on the lines so it doesn’t really count!” admonished Puddinghead. “But that doesn’t matter because we’ve got a new friend! A whole lot of new friend! And…” she spotted the wings and horn on the stranger, and the curls of her mane twanged like springs. “…and such variety!”
“What is she?” muttered Clover. “I can’t detect any illusion magic. A Windigo? But no, it can’t be…”
“I dunno just what she is,” said Hurricane as she flew up to join them, “But she’s got something to do with our missing ponies. She’s, like, absorbed them or something. We tried to make her let them all go, but… that didn’t work out so well. So we brought you guys here to see what you could make of her.”
“Absorbed them?” asked Clover. “What makes you think that?”
Commander Hurricane indicated one of the stranger’s wings. “Well, first, her wings are just like Pansy’s, only larger and white. Plus, she carries her wings just like Pansy did—see how the covert feathers fold over here by the primaries—?” She reached out to touch the area.
The stranger swiftly whipped out a huge hoof, clouting Commander Hurricane’s jaw so hard that both of the Commander’s eyes got smushed to the same side of her face, like a flounder or a Pegasso painting. Still, there was only a moment’s pause in the Commander’s speech.
“*hOOF*—You thee? Thee’th altho got Panthy’s bottled-up fruthration that we were alwayth intenthifying, trying to get her to let it loothe, you know? But there’s thomething elthe there in that kick—thee buckth a lot harder.”
Chancellor Puddinghead inspected the hoof-shaped dent that deformed Hurricane’s face. “That’s an Earth-pony buck, delivered with Smart Cookie’s style. It’s one of her Hammer Slammer Kicks—I’d recognize that kind of pugilistic impaction anywhere.” She suddenly bit the Commander’s snout and pulled it out like a rubber band, letting it pop back with a wet smack, thereby restoring the Commander’s face to normal.
Commander Hurricane shook her head and blinked, champing her jaw as her tongue felt around for loose teeth. “So yeah, that’s why I say absorbed. Any better ideas, Regent Clover?”
Clover studied the stranger more closely. The white coat and horn… a certain look to the eyes… “Princess Platinum…?” she asked. “Is that you?”
The stranger looked thoughtful, rolled her eyes, then gave a small nod, then shook her head, all while waving her hoof in the air.
“Both yes and no, then? Are you able to speak at all?”
“Arhuu smubtig bri gabbuh!” she said cheerfully, in a voice that echoed through the crater, sounding something like the offspring of an elephant and a canary.
Clover blinked. “…I’ll take that as a no. But you can understand my words?”
She nodded.
“Good. Please pardon me for questioning you, but I need to be sure of your identity. On a certain date this month, we discussed, in private, adding a new floor to one of the towers of the castle. If you would, please give me the number of that day, expressed as day of the month, modulo the number of unicorns whose headpieces you said were unforgivably pretentious at the last gala.”
“Huh?” said Commander Hurricane.
The stranger thought a moment, then tapped her forehoof on the ground three times.
Clover showed no expression, but proposed three more obscure questions, all answerable by integer numbers. The stranger patiently tapped out her answers.
“That… That all checks,” said Clover. “If that’s not Princess Platinum in there, it at least has access to her memories.”
“So what shall we do?” said Chancellor Puddinghead. “Smart Cookie’s family are really worried about her! How can we get her out of there?”
“We’ve got to try to put things right, somehow,” said Clover. “We need to get her—them—back to my castle laboratory for further study!”
“Uh, good luck with that,” said Hurricane. “I mean, I really want to get our Private Pansy back, but whatever part of her is in there isn’t a pushover anymore. She doesn’t react very well to persuasion, and she doesn’t seem to want to leave this crater. Some of my troops haven’t woken up yet from our last attempt.”
“How about we invite her to a ‘Just got some super-cool wings and a horn’ celebration?” said Puddinghead, running up to the stranger. “Smart Cookie, you always love my pineapple sideways cake—”
“I’m sure that I can make Princess Platinum see reason, at least” said Clover with confidence. “Princess! I’m sure that you’re as anxious as we are to get this deplorable situation resolved. Please, come with us—”
“BRIGI GALABUH FRUMPTARB!” the stranger suddenly shouted, picking up all three ponies in her mageía and juggling them rapidly in circles.
“Ah! Look what you did now!” shouted Hurricane, struggling vainly in the golden glow.
“This would make a super cool ride! WHEEE!” yelled Puddinghead.
“I am about to be violently sick!” called out Clover. “I shall try to aim my head so that the path of my vomit will not intersect with anyone’s face or hraaallph—”
Suddenly, the stranger whirled about, staring intently at her shelter. An orange glow within it was growing brighter. In a second, a flaming sphere had risen from within, sputtering and spitting sparks. It hung insultingly in the air like a balloon made of lava, emitting a contemptuous greenish flash from its top that made it resemble the Orange of the Apocalypse.
“BRAPPO HRUNBIBBLE!” the stranger shouted, dropping the ponies in a confused heap. “FRIBULLOOO!” She flew swiftly and tackled the fiery sphere, punching and biting it frantically. In turn, the sphere started to bounce about, making a rude buzzing noise and smacking her against the walls of her shelter, sending rocks and pebbles flying all over. “YABBOLI BRI DINGJOURB!” she screamed as she held the sphere tightly in her hornfield and pummeled it with all four hooves. “FRIBULLOOOOOOOO!”
Commander Hurricane recovered first. She took up her companions by their neck scruffs and swiftly bundled them aboard the chariot, and gave the Pegasus team the order to withdraw. They took to the sky with all possible haste.
Clover looked over the chariot’s rear railing at the shrinking scene, frowning as she wiped her chin. “Wait! Go back!” she cried. “We can’t just abandon them like this!”
Commander Hurricane looked back. The stranger was jumping up and down on top of the orange orb, waggling her tail and howling like a wolven Whitney Houston. The orange orb, undaunted, grew brighter, and the rocks around them started to glow from the heat until the crater was obscured with clouds of hot smoke and steam.
Hurricane shook her head. “Regent Clover…? Whatever it is they’re doing, I think we just gotta leave them to it.”
The chariot flew off as a column of hellish smoke arose from the eerie peak of Mount Canter.
Part II—The Risible Sun
Weeks later, the unicorns of the nascent nation of Equestria were standing atop the tallest castle tower and having a terrible midsummer morning, or, more accurately, failing to have one. Their magic, pooled together in a glowing aurora over their heads, had beamed its supplicating ray towards the horizon again and again… but the sun had been getting harder and harder to reach as time went on, and on this day, it entirely refused to respond. The sky remained silver-gray, with desultory stars sparkling overhead.
The unicorns were growing weary, and Clover was feeling especially drained. She straightened up and drew a deep breath. “Okay, stand down, everypony. There’s no sense in over-straining our magic and risking a backlash. We’ll…” she swallowed. “…take a short break, and then…”
“A short break?” called up an Earth pony from a concerned crowd at the base of the tower. “The sun is an hour late, and my roosters are lazing around like a packa good-fer-nothin’s! We can’t grow any crops without the sun!”
“Yeah, Clover, this is seriously uncool,” said Commander Hurricane, representing the Pegasus contingent from a nearby cloud. “Most of our weather patterns rely on the thermals from the sun’s warmth. It makes it a lot harder for us if the sun doesn’t rise!”
Clover tried to swallow her frustration. “We’re doing our best!” she called out. “Do you think I want eternal night? Do you think any of us would ever want that?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, and Clover felt the weight of the stares from the assembled crowd.
“You know, there’s an old Earth pony ritual to make the sun come up,” said Chancellor Puddinghead. “You wear a crown of rooster feathers and daisies and dance around a fire, and you jump up and down really, really hard to encourage the horizon to move down. And it works best if you slather yourself in a paste of month-old guacamole and orange peels—”
“…Look, Regent Clover, maybe you just can get some extra help this time?” suggested Commander Hurricane. “Like, that old guy who used to tutor you, Tar-Twirl or whoever he was…?”
Clover shuddered. I hope I don’t have to go and bring… Starswirl into this, she thought, but what other choice do we have? It wasn’t pleasant, but you sometimes had to do unpleasant things as a leader…
At that moment, a glorious glowing light, brilliant white and leaving a trail of soft green and magenta behind it, streaked up into the sky from the spire of Mount Canter. Shimmering golden mageía surrounded it, and a bright beam shot from it towards the distant mountains. Where it touched them, a red glow appeared, broadening into orange and growing broader, brighter, until the rim of the sun rose over the edge of the world and bathed the assembled ponies in rich, beautiful, heartwarming sunlight.
Clover’s jaw dropped, and the assembled crowd gasped, wide eyed, outlined in orange sunshine. Wild hope bloomed in Clover’s heart. She had made multiple attempts to contact the strange being on the mountain, and had been ingloriously rebuffed each time. Was Princess Platinum at last returning to her home?
The white glow sailed towards them, and it was indeed the winged and horned stranger, the “All-in-one-icorn” or “All-icorn” as some had already dubbed her. She hovered over them, brilliant and resplendent, white wings flashing in the sunlight, her mane and tail now long and streaming behind her like a comet’s tail, though one that pointed towards the sun and not away from it. The sun waxed behind her, and her shadow amid the rays of the sunrise stretched across the sky to the opposite horizon, an awe-inspiring sight that remained etched into the memories of the assembled ponies for the rest of their lives.
She landed gracefully upon the tower, majestic and terrible, and as if by instinct the assembled ponies felt the urge to bend at the knee. They all bowed.
“We are all most grateful to you for raising the sun,” said Clover, daring to rise and speak to the All-icorn. “May I ask how we should address you?” She mentally braced herself for another outburst of ‘pismo flabboo’ bibblebabble.
The All-icorn smiled gently. “We are settled at present in one identity,” she said in a soft but carrying voice, “but We retain the prior title borne by one of Us, the title of Princess. It is obvious, is it not, that one such as Us, who embodies all the tribes in one personage, and who has gained dominion over the sun, is destined to rule?”
The crowd nodded, almost to a pony. Clover, for her part, was vastly relieved that her apparent successor was being so lucid. That strange interlude on the mountainside was perhaps just a temporary phase.
“However,” the All-icorn continued, “We shall not take the name of any of the ponies who constitute Us. We have chosen a name befitting Our present powers, and have styled Ourselves as… Celestia.”
“Princess… Celestia,” said Clover. “I shall prepare the papers necessary to resign the regency within the hour, Your Highness. Have you any other desires? How may we accommodate you?”
“Thank you, Clover. It is Our desire that a small residence, unpretentious and plain, be built at the site of Our most strangely fortuitous birth, but this may wait. In the meanwhile, We shall resume residence in Platinum’s apartments, with periodic visits to the cities of Nimbopolis and Dirtdale. Please have the Pegasus ponies, Cloud Lily and Daisy Wisp, informed that they need not grieve, as their offspring yet lives on in Us, and invite them to an audience to be held this afternoon. Likewise with the Earth ponies Fortune, Tough, and Tosser.
“But at the moment, Clover the Clever, it is Our desire to meet privately with you, Commander Hurricane, and Chancellor Puddinghead on a matter of the very gravest importance…”
***
Soon, in a closed session held in Platinum’s throne room, Clover, Hurricane and Puddinghead listened as Celestia calmly explained the full circumstances behind her Ascension. As she finished speaking, the astounded ponies all started to talk at once.
“No. Way!” exclaimed Hurricane in excitement. “That is the most radical fart story since King Bronkthunder held the pass at Thermoponae with only three hundred troops and a chuck wagon full of cabbages…!”
“It’s completely insane and disgusting, yet it fits every condition of the facts!” said Clover, her eyes sparkling. “I have to know more! Do you remember anything of the impact? Could there have been a resonance interaction…?”
“My Tickle-Tail was right!” said Puddinghead. “It’s such a neat story and you look soooo pretty and tall and I know you’re gonna be the super-duper bestest Princess…!”
“…and he, like, turned his butt to the Caspian horses and yelled his famous line, ‘THIS… IS… FARTAAAA!’ And he totally blew them all off the pass with…”
“…Dry Dust’s theory of dystropic hyperinsertions, but if so that would contradict Maybelle’s Postulate and we’d have to refactor for…”
“…inflatable pants, of course! Which wouldn’t work, except that it was Tuesday and there were a whole lot of bells inside it. So I put the salamander in the—”
“My little ponies…” said Celestia. “Please pay attention. We have an urgent matter to discuss.”
Her voice was gentle and soft, but it carried a note of command that was difficult to deny. They fell quiet.
To be continued… in an even laster chapter, I guess.
And we’re back to the fart jokes again. I would apologize, but at bottom I’m not really feeling it.
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6411255
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. The persons responsible shall be dealt with.
6411982
He’s like that really cool grandpa you’ve always wished you’d had.
6413304
Fire can be an amusement multiplier.
6416418
No Tirek. I have enough alicorns to describe. Feel free to write your own spinoff story.
6432360
What part Starswirl has to play may come to light in a later chapter. Probably the last one.
6436048
My reply may be only tangentially related to your comment, but I miss the Animaniacs sometimes. Other times, I try to pet an otter.
6439890
G’night, everybody!
6464266
Then, as you say, we’re both fine, Dmitri.
6464869
Thank you!
I certainly didnt expect this to ever have a secomd chapter let alone a 3rd comming but im laughing my ass off and wondering how your going to pull off the initial accident again to make luna.
Booooo. Cliffhanger
THIS IS FARTAAAA
This is beautiful. Favorited. Waiting for more. Alicorns are avatars of fart. Headcannon accepted.
All-icorns....it. Makes. Sense!
I have to say, the awesome absurdity of the first chapter felt fine on it own, so I'm not sure why a world-building addition was needed. But oh well, it was still entertaining and "All-icorn" is pretty clever. In fact, there's something to be said for the humor value in taking a really brilliant fart joke and taking it seriously.
I look forward to the next, even more lastest chapter.
So how did Celestia learn speech? Will this be explained?
Deep.
Don't feel bad. A good fart does take a while to build, after all.
6496636
A very good question!
6496643
You misspelled “Yay! Another chapter is coming!”
6496657
Perhaps it’s just madness?
6496676
Thank you!
6496706
Something had to.
6496784
I hereby guarantee that each chapter will be laster than the previous one.
6496848
There are a few weird things going on here. I can say that after the merger of their three minds, it took them a while to figure out how to talk normally again. They didn’t forget what they knew about standard Equestrian speech; they just weren’t able to do it effectively.
6496871
I will deliver only the very best for my readers.
6496904
Huh. I guess that pun doesn't work so well in English, then.
You feeling it now?
6496967
I think it works.
6497043
Thanks. It's nice to feel appreciated.
So, a complete story was continued within the same story. No more farts as you said, yet it still fits perfectly within the story.
Good one! While not as hilarious, it was still a good read.
The ending is very open - will there be more?
6496904 See, what I'm now wondering is: how the hell is someone going to trick those other three into colliding in an appropriate way as to form Luna?
...Okay, everyone back in the shelter, They're at it again.
Oh dear, Celestia is going to order those three to basically well... "make" Luna, isn't she?
Hmmm... okay, I'm pretty sure those bits of gibberish aren't cryptograms...
Probably.
Not that I just spent half an hour trying to crack it or anything.
6496871
Celestia can be quite eloquent.
6496967
One can always build on a pun, for, being the ‘lowest form of wit,’ they are the foundation for all wit.
6496982
Alas, no. I am still comfortably numb.
6497328
Thank you! But how could there be more, when each chapter is the last?
6497407
There’s nothing like unknowing foresight.
6497687
A very good question, indeed. Too bad this is the last chapter, eh?
6499148
Shall we call it ‘optimization?’
6499964
I could be evil and play some head games here, but… please don’t try to decode that stuff. I have a glossolalia section in my brain that readily generates such nonsense, and there is not a particle of intended meaning in it. I hope you didn’t spend much time trying to ‘decipher’ it.
6500013
That likely says it all.
6500134
Not to worry, I did put "Hrunbibble" into an online decoder (cheating, I know, but I was pretty sure at this point) and unless Celestia started talking about Wildebeests out of nowhere, I was pretty sure it was just gibberish.
Not because of the non-sequiter - frankly, it wouldn't suprise me in this story if she did shout "WILDEBEEST" in the middle of a sentence for no readily apparent reason - but because it messed up the consonant- and vowel-symmetries. B would have been e, meaning that u would have had to be a or i, meaning double a or i ending a word, meaning etc, etc...
In other news, I am a stupendous nerd. A shocking find on this site, I 'm sure.
Somehow, I could totally picture Puddinghead inventing the term all-in-corn, "because all three of them were taking part of that corn-hole party!" Thus, all-in-corn, would evolve to become "alicorn".
6496657 Eventually, the kingdom of Perupyousia (pronounced "per-up-yours-ia") would fall. Once again, they would be defeated at a pass. Or, should I say defeated by a pass? A great MIGHTY pass. As they say in the movie Snow Day:
6500134 Should I try to "decrypt" then? Or, should I "interpret?" "Decipher?"
6499148 I think I can speculate: Private Pansy has had plenty of time to plan her revenge for all the pain she's had to endure. The pain, the pain I tell you! Smart Cookie probably wouldn't mind getting back at Chancellor Pudding, for all the irritation she's caused as well. Platinum doesn't like the idea, but she's been overruled 2-1. Perhaps she would have resisted, rather than giving in, but she was just as tired of farting Great Balls of Fire as Puddinghead. On a plus note, restraining these Great Balls has given her the practice she needed to control the sun on her own.
media.giphy.com/media/OYgcKl4X7fvyM/giphy.gif
Looking forward to the next chapter. This is so absurd, yet so glorious...
You know, this makes as much (if not more) sense than any other story about alicorn origins.
I salute you, and offer many mustaches in homage.
6500178
Wildebeest out of nowhere? Is that an unpublished Lovecraft story?
This. is. FARTAAA!
oh dear, more awaited with some type of anticipation.
I guess your lack of an apology is the "bottom" line? I mean, I see nothing wrong "tooting" your own horn.