Distorted Beginnings: Epilogue
“So, how long have you been able to see the future?” Applejack asked, leveling her gaze on Crystal as the group left the Castle of the Two Sisters.
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash interjected, “we could have avoided so much of what went wrong last night if you had just told us ahead of time.”
“You’re both making some assumptions here,” Crystal pointed out calmly. “The chief one being that there is actually some grand design that I happen to be privy to. I don’t believe in things like destiny or fate.”
“Wait,” Dash tilted her head in confusion. “Let me get this straight. You can see the future, but you don't believe in either destiny or fate? How does that work?"
“Not the future,” Crystal explained. “Futures. Plural. And pasts too. And way too many presents.”
“But you can never have too many presents!” Pinkie gasped.
“Not that kind of present, Pinkie,” Twilight tried to assure the party pony.
“Silly Twilight,” Pinkie grinned. “Yesterday is history, and tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift! That’s why it’s called the present!”
“Kinda got you there, Twilight,” Applejack commented dryly.
“I still don’t get it,” Rainbow complained. “Do you see the future or not?”
“Technically, no,” Crystal replied. “I am just as incapable of actually seeing the future as anypony else.”
“Oh,” the multi-chromatic mare felt vaguely disappointed, then confused. “Then why..?”
“It’s really more like remembering things,” Crystal continued, causing Rainbow Dash to stumble.
“Rilly, now?” Applejack raised a brow skeptically.
“Yes!” Crystal stopped and struck a declarative pose. “I remember things beyond time! Beyond space! Beyond the impossible!”
“Crystal, dear, you have trouble remembering what day it is,” Rarity pointed out.
“I never said I was any good at it…” Crystal whined.
*O o O o O*
Once they were back across the river (after some clever applications of force field spells by Crystal and Twilight), Crystal checked her automap. “Okay, if we turn south just past that big tree over there, we should be able to make it back to the clearing so we can recover our stuff.”
“Oh yeah,” Applejack perked up. “I can git my hat back!”
Crystal noticed that Pinkie’s mane had drooped slightly and that her smile looked a little forced. “You okay, Pinkie?”
“I’m…” Pinkie hesitated briefly. “I’m just wondering if Mister Satyr is okay. I kinda hurt him really bad after Applejack already had him down. I… I’m not sorry! Not really! Not after with what he tried to do to you. To us all. But…”
“A satyr, you say?” Princess Luna asked in a strained voice, both she and her sister looking alarmed. “Take us there immediately! ‘Tis not a danger to leave so lightly!”
“I doubt he’s going anywhere,” Rarity stated as the group took off at a somewhat cautious yet hurried trot. “He was pretty badly injured when we left his clearing. He’s not going to be recovering from that anytime soon.”
“He’ll be up and about much sooner than you think,” Luna corrected. “Tis a spirit of lust given physical form, not a true creature.”
“But the body…” Fluttershy started, only to trail off.
“A satyr’s body is just a prop,” Celestia explained. “It’s something it uses so that it can interact with the physical world. And it is something that it can repair if it is left alone long enough to do so.”
“We must make haste,” Luna insisted, feeling even guiltier than she had before. She had only wanted to challenge these mares, not subject them to something like this! “If we do not make sure that the body is truly ruined beyond repair, it will recover and once again set out to lure mares to their doom.”
“Satyr’s kill mares?” Twilight asked, confused. “I thought they just… You know… Not that that isn’t bad, but still…”
“Death is not the ‘doom’ my sister is talking about,” Celestia corrected. “Although some satyrs do end up killing their victims, mostly unintentionally, most just leave their victims mentally and emotionally crippled. A shadow of their former selves with greatly reduced capacity for reasoning and self-control.”
“And not a few end up selling their victims into slavery once they are done with them so that they may fund their other lusts,” Luna added darkly.
“Somehow I don’t think we have to worry about this particular fella coming back,” Applejack observed as they entered the clearing.
There, by the tree with the cracked trunk, lay a manticore, resting after having obviously eaten his fill.
The only thing that remained of the satyr, as far as any of them could tell, were a few scattered and gnawed on bones.
“Who’s a good boy?” Fluttershy praised the beast as she flew up and began scratching him behinds his ears. “You are! Yes, you are!”
“Sometimes that mare worries me,” Crystal stated dryly.
“You ain’t the only one,” Applejack agreed with equal dryness.
*O o O o O*
"Looks like quite the welcomin' committee waitin' ta greet us," Applejack noted as the group finally exited the Everfree Forest and spotted what appeared to be a squad of EUP soldiers escorting a group of six civilian unicorns and a baby dragon in their direction. There was also a LOT of observable activity going on in Ponyville behind them, with ponies, civilian and military alike, all over the place.
Crystal Synergy blinked, tilted her head for a moment, and then promptly did the first thing that entered her head by sideling up to Princess Celestia. "If they ask any questions, just remember: I'm deaf and you don't speak Ponish!" she stage whispered.
Rarity put a hoof to her face even as Celestia and Pinkie Pie giggled and everypony else just looked at Crystal in confusion.
Lieutenant Vines approached them and bowed. "Your Highness."
"مرحبا يا مهر الصغير" Celestia greeted, soliciting a grin from Crystal and Pinkie (and twitchy eyes from everypony else).
"Sister, cease this nonsense at once!" Princess Luna admonished. "It is clear that none present are familiar with... with... whatever language you have chosen to use just now!"
"لماذا "لونا" ، أعتقد أنك سمحت لسجلك العربي بالصدء." Celestia chided her sister whimsically.
"Um... Princess Celestia?" Twilight prompted hesitantly.
"نعم ، الشفق؟"
"Could you please switch back to using Ponish? I don't speak... um... Saddle-Arabic? And, judging from everypony's reactions, nopony else present does either."
"Is that what that was?" Luna asked. "It... has been a while since I last heard it spoken."
"Peut-être que je devrais. Est-ce que c'est mieux comme ça, Twilight?"
"Not really," Twilight replied, although she could at least parse out what her mentor was saying this time.
"Princesse Celestia, aussi amusante pensez-vous être, arrêter de taquiner ma sœur, s'il vous plait?" Rarity requested with a slight smile.
"I have no idea what you just said," Crystal announced with a grin.
"It's Chevalish, Crystal," Rarity reminded her sister drily. "We both took classes in it, remember?"
"Nope!" Crystal stated proudly. "Je n'ai aucune idée de ce que je viens de dire à l'instant."
"¡Esto es divertido!" Pinkie announced. "¡Quiero participar también!"
"Was that Caballos?" Crystal asked, raising a brow.
"¡Sí!" Pinky replied.
"Could y'all please switch back ta speakin' plain Ponish?" Applejack asked plaintively.
"Very well, my little pony," Celestia acquiesced gently.
"И как раз когда я выбрала язык, чтобы внести вклад в это веселье" Luna grumbled in лошадином grumpily before smiling ruefully.
This bit (actually these two bits) has been sitting on SpaceBattles for quite a while. While I like them and don't want to get rid of them, they were causing a bit of a block as the start of the next arc of the story.
And then, just a few minutes ago, it occurred to me that they'd make a pretty good epilogue for the first arc instead, allowing me to keep the scenes without tying them as strongly to the beginning of the next arc. So I am finally posting them here.
BTW: If anyone wants to see the translations for what everyone was saying in the final scene of the epilogue, they can be found here, at the bottom of the post, behind a spoiler. 
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IT LIVES YESSSSS
My oh my, a wild update appears!
Just so you know, anything not in romaji {English alphabet} gets passed over by the auto reader.
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As this is probably going to be the only time that I use this particular gag (and it's an epilogue piece with a link to the translation in the author's note), I'm going to leave it as is.
I will, however, avoid attempting similar linguistic stunts in the future, whether in this story or in others I may write.
Wise words
Aye
...this is gonna be hilarious
*after reading the rest of the story and the translations*
Spoiler alert, I was right
I remember seeing this in space battles sheet looking for more of this story. Knowing that you're going to continue it does make me happier, and I bet that a lot of other fans too
And now we have a Soviet Luna
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Not so much Soviet as merely being able to speak Russian. Or, to be more accurate than I can adequately portray in this story, Luna is capable of speaking a Russian dialect from before 1,000 years of linguistic drift. And it took her a few moments to remember that much of it off the hoof.
Just read this today.
One point. Rarity's cutie mark story (The Cutie Mark Chronicles ABSOLUTELY has to be a lie (well, dramatic exaggeration at the very least)
According to Rarity, the day of the class play, her horn dragged her through vast distances of wilderness (for days on end) to her rock. Then, she would have had to go back to town, get something to haul the jewels in, go BACK to the rock, load the jewels, haul the jewels back to town, & THEN alter all the costumes. HOW WAS THERE TIME for all this?
No, that rock had to be pretty close to town (an hour or so at the most). IMO, it was in a rock garden right in town (& since she got the jewels, probably in her parents' backyard)
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Or it could have been a rock in those gem fields just outside of town that rarity makes regular day trips to.
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I was actually thinking of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." And no, can't say I've read Wind in the Willows. It never seemed to get onto my reading list.
Absolutely awesome seeing you updating again!
Ah, new chapter, good to see it happening... I've caught up on the past four chapters now. good stuff. All fun reads.... Twilight would be proud...
Thank you, Master Oogpie.
"Yes. Imagine having to keep track of the calendars of a hundred different worlds!"
I'm delighted to see more of this, especially given the news that you've gotten past a block. Looking forward to more. And those translations really go the extra mile.
Batty: Wasn't Crystal too hurt to walk?
Crystal: Shh; that's the older version of the story!
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Crystal was just healed by the Elements of Harmony.
Prior to that, she had been too injured for others to safely move her, let alone for her to be able to walk on her own.
Which is still the same, unchanged part of the story between revisions. All the revision did was trim back the heartsong so that the only effect to noticeably reach Ponyville was the map table in Doc's workshop activating to display HARMONY ONLINE.
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An earlier idea for the story was Crystal not getting healed by the Elements of Harmony and her being stuck in the hospital for a while. How did Batty remember that?
Batty: Top secret! Eh not really, it was in an old post somewhere.
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That idea never made it out of the comments and into any of the actual drafts.
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Batty: So that means Crystal won't get Luna as a mentor? That's sad; Luna needs friends! Oh I know I could-
Good night every pony!
luna speaks russian!?
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Luna speaks Old Loshadinom, which is about as different from modern Loshadinom as Old English is from modern English.
Which is to say, most ponies from contemporary Stalliongrad would barely be able to understand her, as the version of Loshadinom dialect she's attempting to use is about a thousand years out of date...
But yes, Luna speaks Russian. Sort of. In much the same way that most other ponies speak English. Most pony researchers into intercontinuity travel refer to it as the Linguistic Analogue Convergence Effect, or L.A.C.E.
A similar effect known as Chronological Linguistic Adjustment Phenomenon (or C.L.A.P.) covers those who travel forwards or backwards in time, albeit to a different degree.
Discord merely refers to both effects as convenient. And admits nothing as to his role in influencing either of their names.
Ack-em, you say that, but I don't see them.
Also also, PLEASE UPDATE THIS STORY!!! Me NEEDS my pony words, and it's just soo goood!!~~
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Did you click on the link in the word here?
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you know it is pretty hard to tell if somethings a link or not on this site unless it's in blue or one passes over it with their mouse, even more so when wearing blue blockers. And with that thank you for pointing it out for me,
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I know. I'm pretty sure that the links used to highlight themselves automatically. And they do. Sort of.
Except that I'm positive that they used to highlight themselves a bit better than merely being a slightly different shade off of default...
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Me thinks it was something they did on an update last year or year before.
Happy to see you alive and well!
God be with you and be safe!
Hehe, fun!
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ok
I'm not sure but is this Greek?
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Russian, actually.
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Thanks for that.
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10279564
Well, Luna speaks a derivative of Greek.
For example, the word, "дипломат" is clearly evolved from "ΔΙΠΛΩΜΑΤΗΣ." Numerous other examples in Russian are close enough.
Continue and update, please. Imagine how she helps Twilight in equestrian girls and all other parts between them.
Ha cause Luna is Russian for moon
Very well done story.
Looking forward to more.
The Monk
“Hundreds of years,” Reflection muttered, enjoying the scratching. “That’s a lot of porn.” - Dropbear
Come back I want to read MOAR of this story, few authors have been able to make me almost shed manly tears of manliness
Is this still being worked on? I really liked it and I'm hoping for more, I've read other story's by this author like Batty but they don't seem to be updating either...
do more don't leave this story for dead