Conversation 32: Mary
The night air was thick with pegasi and confetti, and apparently, a substantial proportion of the pegasi were blind drunk already.
Your special day
We celebrate now, the pony way
Your friends are all right here
Won’t let these moments disappear because…
Judging by the number of ponies singing along with Twilight, this was yet another heartsong. So far, the count was up to three, with one of Shining Armor’s groomsmen… groomsponies… groomstallions?… starting the first, and one of the bridesmaids starting the second. Pinkie was zipping around at speeds rivaling Rainbow Dash, because they literally invited the entire city, and most of it actually did show up. After two low altitude Sonic Rainbooms with only four seconds between them, which caused premature detonation of about half the fireworks, only the dead wouldn’t.
Why is it bridesmaids, and not bridesmares, anyway?
The wedding cake was so big, that hollowed out, it could comfortably house a family of two with children. It’s a good thing ponies don’t seem to particularly enjoy wedding speeches, or we’d be here all the way into the next week. My primary discovery of the day, beyond the fact that a Sonic Rainboom is on the short list of things that blind the golden eye for more than a minute, was a bottle of salt liquor, which turned out to be one of the local distilled spirits of choice, next to applejack and whiskey.
It’s a shame that I get all the benefits of a hangover without actually getting noticeably drunk, but at least it relaxes the muscles.
“Me next!” Lyra yelled from the next table over, when Twilight came back.
“Sit down,” her date interrupted. “You’re not singing anything unless stone cold sober.”
“I am sober!” Lyra retorted.
“No you aren’t.”
Rarity giggled, “I must admit, Bon-Bon, you look more dashing in a tuxedo than most stallions. Why, I am positively charmed.”
“Mine!”
“Blame our one-pony engine of destruction here,” Bon-Bon commented, “I even had a dress prepared, but she insisted I get a tuxedo at the last minute.”
“I still can’t understand how you could get so scatterbrained, Twilight,” Moondancer said. “Lyra lives in Ponyville, just how could you miss that?!”
I was surprised to find that Twilight had any proper friends in Canterlot in the first place, let alone five, not to mention that Lyra turned out to be one of them. More than that, I was surprised to see a pony who looked like Twilight’s twin that gravely angered the Wizard of Oz. The only significant difference between them beyond the coloration were the exceedingly bushy eyebrows. And glasses, which badly needed a replacement. And that sweater…
Rarity was so shocked to see the sweater, that she dragged Moondancer away by force the very moment they got introduced. They didn’t turn up for an entire day, and when they were back, the poor girl was sporting the newest selective visibility dress, together with elegant wire-rimmed glasses and neatly styled hair. Unfortunately I didn’t get to talk to her much after that, because she kept hiding behind Fluttershy and other non-threatening objects ever since, only starting to peek out after a generous dose of hard cider.
Bored Rarity is just about as dangerous as frustrated Twilight.
“I have no idea, myself,” Twilight replied, folding her ears in shame. “I just want to say this once again, I’m very sorry, Lyra.”
“Eh, I didn’t know you were Shining Armor’s little sister, we’re even,” Lyra waved a hoof dismissively, bumping a glass off the table. The glass was immediately caught in the glow of somepony’s magic. “You keep galloping from one adventure straight into another, it’s fun to watch.”
“Having fun, everypony?” Cadance’s voice rang out as she and Shining Armor approached. Twilight found a piece of paper on the table and crossed out a checkbox.
“Ye-e-s!” they chorused.
Most of them.
“Tis’ most exciting to finally see thee in the flesh,” someone whispered right above my ear. Luna, of course. With her dropping in on my “dreams” three times since I arrived, the voice is even familiar. “No, no, do not get up,” she added, dropping a pillow across the table from my chair, “We… ah, I, have had more than enough of our own citizens bowing for today.”
“If you say so,” I replied, locating a fresh glass and filling it with the salt liquor. “Pardon me if I’m committing any social transgression by offering, but shall we toast the happy couple?”
“This night is a time for celebration, so you do hereby have a royal pardon for any offenses committed unwillingly in sincere pursuit of such!” Luna replied, picking the glass up and clinking it on mine. “May Cadance and Shining Armor live happily ever after!” she proclaimed.
The toast was met with a smile from both mentioned, but they quickly went back to the murmur of conversation at the next table over.
“You are taking the celebration quite seriously, I see,” Luna commented, eyeing the bottle of salt liquor. Half-empty. “I was told champagne is the customary drink for a wedding, in this day and age.”
“I’ve had all manner of champagne over the years, this is new,” I replied. “And speaking of celebration, I think you will find I’m less intoxicated than, for example, those two,” I added, nodding in the direction of two dancing ponies.
The particular ponies in question were Prince Blueblood and Trixie, who both sported reddened cheeks, and moved with that grace you only find in people who are perpetually one misstep away from falling over.
“My sister was not particularly pleased with this development,” Luna commented. “Poor boy is excited to meet a mare who cares not for his rank and station, but in truth, her interest in him is marginal indeed. Alas, I had no opportunity to educate my student from an early age.”
“They do seem to be getting on well, though,” I commented. “You heard about the cart, I expect?”
“I have,” Luna nodded. “But verily, Trixie Lulamoon will follow Twilight Sparkle to the ends of the Earth, and there is naught he can do about it.”
“I don’t think this will be that much of a problem, if he is content with pulling her cart to those ends,” I said. “That would be interesting to watch, at least.”
“Tis’ true indeed,” Luna chortled, “A noble prince pulling a cart is a sight for sore eyes. Back in my day…” she trailed off. “It is so strange to find myself saying that, ‘back in my day,’ as if my days are over and done, and yet, I can find no other way to say it.”
“I used to do that all the bloody time,” I concurred. “Thinking of time as distance helps, so can I offer ‘back when and where I was born’ as an alternative?”
“It still makes me feel old!” Luna complained. “I am the younger sister, am I not?”
Not an issue I would expect a demigod with at least three hundred years worth of personal timeline to have. Certainly, not the kind of issue Rika has, and by my estimates, she’s just about that old. I wonder, how does Celestia feel about her age.
Instead of voicing that, I replied with a platitude I originally cooked up for myself. “You’re only officially old when, after consuming a work of fiction depicting a character of your age, instead of daydreaming of asking them something you wish you knew, you daydream about telling them something you know too bloody well.”
Luna laughed. “Verily, I would be hard pressed to locate such a work of fiction!”
“Don’t count on it,” I countered, “While you were out, ponies discovered science fiction and heroic fantasy. Characters of your age bracket turn up often. It’s not like the pony civilization doesn’t have the history of you two for an example, after all.”
“Indeed?” Luna looked at me curiously. “Tell me, then. To you, our realm is a work of fiction, is it not? So which is it that you are daydreaming of?”
“I think I’m still asking questions,” I shrugged. “Might have more to do with not sharing much experience with ponies, though.”
“Just like at the Gala, you’re hogging the new and interesting guests and dragging them off into dark corners, Luna,” someone accused next to the table. Celestia. We did finally get introduced earlier today, but she was so busy ever since, that I have managed to avoid her attention.
Maybe I should have kept avoiding it. I’m still not sure.
“Am not!” Luna retorted, sliding aside on her pillow, and tapping it with a hoof. “I just found her first.”
“Well, now I have caught you both. Victory!” Celestia replied with a smile, settling on the pillow next to Luna and wrapping a wing around her. “You’re a very difficult person to track down, Mary. It’s a shame, Twilight had so many good things to say about you.”
“Sorry, your highness,” I smiled. “Bit of a reflex. In all honesty, celebrations like these are not my forte. I’m constantly at a loss which behavior is appropriate in this particular culture, in this particular time, and with this particular company, and being among ponies does not help. Without Rarity’s invention, I expect I would pick a much darker corner to hide in.”
Luna’s eyebrows went up. Unlike Celestia, with her diplomatic poker face, Luna’s expressions are much more readable. Looks like the dress has remembered what it’s for and started working its magic.
“I understand that it is you whom we have to thank for finding Cadance,” Celestia remarked.
Why does the golden parasite think she’s a human girl in a poofy white dress even my mother would call old-fashioned? And why does she look like she was painted by James Whistler in pastel on black construction paper? For the entire day, every other pony was rendered by post-impressionists. As ponies. It has been ponies all the way ever since the invasion. Why did it decide to switch now?
“I think the correct word is blame, your highness,” I insisted. “After all, if it weren’t for me, the need wouldn’t arise in the first place.”
Every other pony, except Luna. I got so used to how mundane everypony looked for most of the week, that I actually managed to tune the eye out entirely. They look like sisters even as humans… but Luna’s dress is black.
“Really? I should blame you for being treated to some of the most moving displays of harmony in decades, then,” Celestia replied with an enigmatic smile. “To hear the whole city in heartsong, to witness a true miracle with my own eyes… This is something I haven’t seen for a very long time. I was pleasantly surprised.”
Should I take it as an indication that she had foreseen the mainline version of events which we disrupted, or not? Let’s determine just how informed she is, first.
“I can’t take credit for ponies engaging in heroism,” I replied. “Initiating the massacre of the invading army, though? Kind of. I did basically goad Rika into making it possible.”
I was pressed for time. I don’t do very well when I’m pressed for time.
“The last time I fought Chrysalis, I sealed her into a live volcano, and never expected to unseal it again,” Celestia replied, without losing a beat. “I mellowed out a lot over the years, but not enough to overturn that one decision, she inflicted far too much death and suffering on our little ponies. While I would have preferred to show mercy, this was the outcome she chose. She sent her changelings to their deaths, all by herself.”
Intriguing.
“Indeed,” Luna chimed in, “She refused surrender in no uncertain terms, and swore to visit untold calamities on Canterlot in the same breath.”
I can imagine why. How did she even survive in a volcano?… I guess I can ask that one later. “Out of curiosity,” I wondered, “what would have happened if she did surrender?”
“In this day and age?” Celestia pondered, raising a hoof to rub her chin. “She is not an Equestrian citizen, so she would be tried in a court of law as a foreign national for committing crimes in Equestria. Impersonation of a Princess of Equestria, fraud, conspiracy to commit an act of war, false imprisonment, use of mind altering magic with intent to commit fraud, escape from imprisonment for prior crimes, numerous misdemeanors…”
“Isn’t being a changeling enough?” Luna wondered.
“There’s no law against being a changeling, Luna, and I hope our little ponies won’t be stupid enough to try to pass one,” Celestia replied. “I’m still holding out for something good coming of her progeny, if not of Chrysalis herself, though after this incident, I’m open to suggestions.”
“What sort of sentence are we looking at, here?” I wondered. “And more importantly, do you think she knew what exactly to expect?” The implication that Chrysalis is the progenitor of all changelings is quite interesting already, – just how does that work exactly? – but I will need more pieces of this puzzle if I want to get this mess sorted out for good.
“Those crimes alone would be enough for a few decades in Tartarus, if she does not demonstrate repentance,” Celestia replied. “But with the way her prior sentence never had a set time, this would turn into a fascinating legal puzzle, which would occupy the court for years.” A mischievous grin spread across her elongated face. Of all the ponies I have seen so far, Celestia resembles an actual horse the most. “It would be very interesting to watch, and I find that the tedium of the proceedings works even better than–”
She was interrupted by a Royal Guard galloping to the table. He frantically tried to backpedal when he was just a few steps away, and slammed into it with the sound of a frying pan knocking on wood, nearly knocking my bottle over. “Your highnesses!” he panted out.
“What happened, sergeant?” Celestia asked him. So that’s what a worried Princess Celestia looks like. “Take a breath. Whatever it is, five seconds won’t make a difference, but a forgotten word might.”
The sergeant took a breath as directed, and removed his helmet, revealing the blue crew cut. He threw a glance at me, and I did my best to pretend I’m just background noise. Praise be to Rarity, this is so much easier now.
“Your highness,” he finally choked out, “It has returned!”
This story has the most peculiar sense of dramatic timing, the only way you could get more obvious is by punctuating it with a thunder strike.
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There's no "Meta" tag, unfortunately. Nor a "Overdramatic sense of the Dramatic" tag. Supposedly an update to the tag system is coming any year now...
That reminds me of a certain terrible over-the-top HiE story... If I remember correctly, in it Equestria was made by a space alien as a recreation of the show, leading to the Princesses acting quite childishly out of character at times, because unknown to them, their real age was only a few years old instead of hundreds. Not exactly the most relevant thing I guess, but w/e. Can't find it, but I didn't look very hard.
Honestly, in my opinion, just putting the 'Drama' and 'Human' tag is fine-- put that in the survey, as well.
Can't wait for next chapter, as usual.
Your current tags are fine as they are.
7701354
My new favorite word.
7701341
Highly unlikely, considering that the younger population has repurposed the word ‘meta’ to mean ‘story about the site or its users.’ There isn’t even a group devoted to metafiction.
Maybe I should start one...
7701343
Both dichotomy pairs also list the option ‘neither of the two,’ so if you think it should have neither “Slice of Life” nor “Adventure,” that’s what you should pick.
Technically, I can trivially bypass this restriction and have both, rather than one or neither. Fimfiction’s backend does not test for these two mutually exclusive pairs, that’s done in the frontend, so making a story have both “Adventure” and “Slice of Life” is a matter of opening the browser’s debug console and editing two HTML elements before saving. But you never know what are they going to call “hacking” these days, so I don’t want to do this. :)
7701391
No. I meant that I put that in the survey, for other tags.
Sorry for the misunderstanding.
How come there's no "Deconstrustion" or "Rational fic tags? I'm pretty sure there are already lots of stories that fit them here.
7701497
Stories existing is not grounds to alter the tag system. :) Considering how long it took them to add an "Equestria Girls" tag, I don't expect any changes in the foreseeable future.
I always felt puzzled by Slice of Life tag here. Aporia doesn't feel like slice of life at all to me. I mean, let's take definition from wiki: "Slice of life is mundane realism depicting everyday experiences in art and entertainment." There is nothing "mundane" or "everyday" about two aliens arriving in a fantasy land in a period when it regularly gets attacked by various extraordinarily powerful villains all capable of conquering it, then proceeding to sow chaos and raise difficult questions about nature of reality.
"Mundane realism" seems rather incompatible with creation of new realities by storytelling, time travel to the point of writing yourself out of being born (but not from existence), making a pony into an anthropomorphic magical girl, future knowledge, miraculous resurrections and all kinds of other weird stuff that's going on here - weird even by Equestrian standards.
So my pick of tags will be: definitely Adventure, maybe Mystery, maybe Drama. Possibly Random.
7701653
I agree with you wholeheartedly in that if the definition for “Slice of Life” given in the FAQ is taken seriously, Aporia certainly does not fit it. The problem with the FAQ is that it does not reflect the way the tags are actually used on the site.
The tag FAQ is quite recent – under half a year, if my memory serves me right – while the tags themselves have existed for much longer and evolved interpretations that are not in sync with it. What it says about the combination of “Teen” and “Sex” is ambiguous as hell, and the rest of it is not that much better. Since the tags are primarily a means for the readers to find a story they might like reading, tags I set should reflect the actual, rather than the declared meaning.
Which is why for this particular triplet – “Slice of Life” / “Adventure” / “Neither” – I’m definitely just picking the one that ends up highest voted. :)
Good to see the wedding is wrapped up, and we get back to our main character.
I feel like they must have done this canonically as well. You can't have the entire city fighting for its life together against a changling menace, then go back to throwing a private party for the elite several hours later. It'd make the Princesses look like Marie Antoinette.
I love this, I hope Rarity plucked her unibrow and threatened her with dire consequences if she didn't keep it up.
Mmmmmm, delicious shipping. I'm down for some Trixblood, and it will give us an excuse to see Bluie again the next time Trixie throws down.
Honestly, some of the stuff Celestia does is a lot crueler than just executing people, if she has a choice. I mean, forcing Sombra into an icy hole with no similar release date, this, it's pretending you're more merciful for letting them live and letting their (presumably eternal) suffering ease your conscience. Heck Tartarus seems to be some magic bubble that keeps you alive and nothing else happens, and Tirek was in there a millennium.
Good answer. I like how use of mind altering magic is only listed as a crime when it's used with intent to commit fraud.
And glad to see you covered the repentance angle. Someday they're going to face a villain who will never reform but will freely repent as soon as they are caught.
Hmmm. In canon, Shining Armor looked happy and excited to be riding off to their honeymoon, so it's hard to believe the S3 opener happened right after their wedding. And it's also hard to think of ways this timeline could have been altered to speed up the return of the Crystal Empire.
Overall, good chapter because Luna being Luna is always adorable. I think the current tags fit perfectly.
7703133
Styled it, rather. :)
Because it didn’t. In canon, or most close-canon sane-chronology stories, at least a week passes between the wedding and the Crystal Empire turning up. A few more days pass until Twilight is sent in.
With the way humans introduced a whole bucket of bolts into the works, the wedding got delayed for an entire week, and now these events overlap. That’s actually enough to take it off the rails for good.
Maidenhood is orthogonal to ponyhood, though (maiden & pony) => mare
…now my head hurts trying to think about the legal knot of applying the Champagne branding laws across parallel universes.
7703133
It doesn't imply it's necessary for it to be a crime; consider "possession" vs "possession with intent to sell".
MM w/ intent to defraud, MM w/intent to harm, MM to create accomplice…
Of course, if mind-altering magic is blanket-illegal, then …well, canon has a big issue. Cadence uses it. The EoH use it. Luna uses it. Twilight uses it. Fluttershy uses it. The CMC use it.
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They aren’t very consistent about it. For example, in The Crystalling, Twilight Velvet calls herself “grandmare” – meaning “grandmother” – which is a word nobody else ever uses.
Ponies probably have a town called “Champagne” famous for its vineyards hidden somewhere. Or, the origins of the word can be wildly different… :)
It’s definitely not blanket-illegal, the examples of ponies being very tolerant of it in canon are way too numerous. If anything, by itself mind-affective magic is at most a misdemeanor, and is clearly judged primarily by intent of the user and the consequences it had.
That said, I expect some kinds of intent for it are seen in a very harsh light.
7701391
Fyi, the slice and adventure restriction got removed, being replaced by tag count restrictions.
7703133
Reminds me of The Doctor when he was pretending to be a human and trying to just let some mis-behaving aliens die off from short life. When he had to get involved and do something, his punishment was a long life ...