We know
Everyone but Grimliss had left for the market lining the streets. Several stands and 'floor stalls' with all manner of bits and baubles littered the floor. The road was the largest that connect from the palace to the central plaza of the city and spanned several blocks; All of which were occupied by markets and stalls. Tons of deer were walking through the streets, many which were just talking about the mundane events of their daily lives or even those trying to haggle with the merchants.
"This looks quite exciting!" Celestia clamored. She looked to the side to see Radivus and Tenyom looking at a stall where a large, metal box with a few dents sat. "What's going on there?" Celestia asked.
"The markets here also have some games as well," Copper explained. "With that one, you need to dent the box enough to gain either a gift of your choosing or some money."
"What do you think? Try your hooves?" the stall owner suggested.
"Sure," Radivus said. "Sister?" he invited as he slowly backed away.
The doe cracked her shoulders and gave a strong punch into the block of metal, denting it tremendously compared to the other shallow dents. The stall owner looked at the crater with wide eyes then shrugged. Accepting the situation, he passed the mare a bag of coins which she gladly cashed in on.
"Um...There are less 'violent' games here, aren't there?" Celestia asked.
Copper could only 'ehhh' and tilt from left to right. The deer in the area would become silence once they became aware of Stelimus and those accompanying him, and they could all feel a tremendous pressure on their psyche and bodies. While Luna and Yolumay found their calling in arguing about the best types of weapons and approaches to various situations, the remaining three observed the foods, clothes, and other house tools. Radivus and Tenyom were busy working on all the games they could find, with Tenyom doing the physical and Radivus doing both the agile and intellectual games. Tenyom was capable of the intellectual things too, but she didn't have the patience for it.
"So...I never did go to Cadance's..." Celestia trailed off.
"I know," Copper answered.
"How did you cope?"
"I had Stelimus with me." Copper cuddled against the giant stag who kept in the cringe he felt at the moment. "He helped a lot."
"And what did Shining do?"
This time, Stelimus answered. "He went a bit...berserk. Increasing guards and preventing deer and ponies from meeting. He even tried frying several of my people after the encounter."
"He was trying to find someone to blame," Celestia concluded.
Stelimus nodded. "I've seen these things before. In the end, Copper had to go with my uncle's guards to calm him down."
Copper chuckled nervously. "Those were some difficult eight months of my life."
"I'm still sorry I couldn't come to you and help your father in his time of need. I was having a bit of trouble of my own in Equestria and needed to aid the elements in their tasks. Then there was the aftermath..." she trailed off. "Still, I am proud you managed to help heal his wounds where I could do nothing."
"It's okay, Celestia. This was a family matter anyways. I was also feeling what he felt."
Celestia playfully punched Copper on the shoulder. "Oh, so I'm not family anymore?"
Copper giggled in response.
"And you, Stelimus," Celestia spoke. "How are you getting accustomed to your life as king?"
Stelimus coughed. "It's...hard."
"It's always hard to please everypony."
"It's not just that. These deer are...capricious, as some would say. I have Grimliss helping me out, but no matter what I try to do to make them happy, they get angrier and angrier! It's like a vicious cycle of ungratefulness."
Celestia scratched her chin and chuckled nervously. "Yes. I had to deal with such things myself. With my ponies, you need to be kind to them an apply just a little bit of authority to those who step out of line so that everypony knows that the power I wield isn't just for fun. THat there are consequences to their actions."
"Huh...I never really thought of it that way."
"True, but the deer aren't like ponies," Copper added. "They're very aggressive and were used to an aggressive approach." She looked at Celestia with a pleading look. "We don't have the heart to rule that way!"
"But isn't that how the tundran reindeer lived for the last few millenia?"
"Yes! But we aren't the late king!" Copper whisper-yelled. "We don't have the ability to be as harsh as he!"
"Nopony ever said you needed to remain that way."
Stelimus' ears perked up and he looked at Celestia with a tilted head. "What do you mean?"
"Start off aggressive like him and gradually go down to a more lenient way of ruling. You can't expect an animal stuck in a cage for its whole life to be able to run into the wild and survive once released, can you?"
"I would've used a detox comparison, but..." Stelimus shrugged.
"Detox?" Celestia wondered.
"Nothing."
Copper chuckled. "He does that sometimes. Mentioning things we never understand. He's creative, to say the least."
Celestia screeched and bounced away after seeing a windigo and other, non-shaped spirits fly in front of her."What were those?!" she squealed.
"They're spirits," Stelimus answered. "They fly around her and we live with them...as best as we can," he dropped off at the end of his sentence.
"Spirits? Even windigos?"
"Yes."
"But they feed on turmoil and negativity."
"Ah, yeah. That they do," Stelimus answered sarcastically.
"Then how come you haven't frozen over?"
"Because the city is ripe full of conflict. If they froze everypony they would starve, but just feeding off what we have here is enough to sustain them," Copper explained. "Why do you think they haven't been seen in Equestria anymore, Princess?"
"Because of the magic of friendship and the positivity I've helped grow in Equestria?"
"Magic of friendship?" Stelimus repeated. "What is this, a cartoon for little girls? Come on." He frowned.
Stelimus rolled his eyes in response. Further away, he could see three tall figures looking at the deer's wares, one of them grabbing an apple pie and paying the deer in something that caused her to scream in joy and bounce around. The others around all stared at the three figures not with contempt and rage as they were doing with Stelimus and his group, but with sheer stupefication. The deer didn't even resume their actions. They preferred to simply stare at these new figures. When Celestia caught sight of them, even she was confused. She had never seen anything like that.
"What are those?" Copper asked. "Minotaurs?"
"We have minotaurs in this world?" Stelimus mumbled to himself."Wasn't I already told this?"
"No. they're too thin to be minotaurs. Plus, their cloaks aren't minotaur in design and fabric. It's not even a style I recognize."
The closer they came, the more apparent Celestia's statement became. Around what could be assumed was the neck was a large ring separated in small squares, and for every white square, there was a brighter beige color. The waist was lined with horizontal streaks of gold designed to look like a river in a varied light. It was quite creative, actually. However, that was about all the decorative features the cloths had, and Celestia felt a sort of discomfort seeing them. Luna and Yolumay both returned when they saw the three figures while Tenyom and Radivus both stepped in front of the King and Queen to fulfill their duty. When the figures stopped, there was a feeling of unease, and there was nothing but a brisk silence. A long, bony black hand pointed at Stelimus.
"Are you King Anglacite of the Tundran Deer?" The figure spoke in a deep, gravely tone.
"No. I'm his son."
"Ahhhh, so the black snow melted another icicle."
"B-black snow? Black snow he knows about black snow what do you know about black snow HOW do you know about black snow?" Stelimus droned on.
The three figures lowered their cowls to reveal the bare faces of jackals with tall, canine ears. They all wore Egyptian styled make-up around their eyes; The two other figures had golden imagery painted around them with one having the lower extensions ending in a slight, downward curve and balls with the other having them end in an upward curl wrapping around itself. The most prominently positioned one's eye make-up was a deep-red with the upper-section curving up then inwards while the lowest line went straight and stopped as a hollow circle. The upper-frontal half and top of their ears was decorated with golden jewelry of some kind hugging the skin. The one in front, however, wore red jewelry that covered all but the interior of its ears.
"We're very well attuned with the black snow, dear deer."
"You punned?"
"I have the right to."
"So how do you know about the black snow?" Celestia asked. "We did our best to keep it hidden and covered up, and I'm fairly certain I've never seen your people before. Nopony outside the tundra except for my sister and I knew about it."
The jackals behind laughed. "Because," the red-eyed one explained. "We know the origins of the black snow." He raised his arms and looked up to the sky. "It's part of our whole culture and who we are!" His yell echoed through the city and made even those unaware of their presence further down the streets to become silent.
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th02.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/086/0/0/mysterious_note_of_dark_brotherhood_by_apoca7ypse-d4u66yd.jpg
EDIT: Swapped out the picture for a better formatted one.
This is interesting so far, it would explain the jackal bust statue. Still I wander if Stellanus is now immortal like his father now, seeing the resemblance he has with him. I wander what happened to his mother anyway. Also I wander if Grimuss still keep Mix-up arround and still produces more sins against everything that is tasteful he calls art
Huh, well that answers my question. I wonder what else the three Jackals know about the black snow?
No human tag?
7549006 Thanks for spotting that. I accidentally the word 'antlers'.
7549030 No. I'm going with the misinformation that it can hurt you.
7549057 Of course he does. He loves the new skies Mix-Up makes.
7549097 You think it's still necessary?
7550055 New positions can change a lot of people. Pressure. PRESSURE!
Well, that's starting out interesting. I was hoping we'd actually get to see a bit more of the show's cast this time around. Probably won't be much of it, going by the description, but still, it's part of what makes stories like this interesting, so I enjoyed that.
This really could do with some more editing, though. The writing is pretty rough, compared to Black Snow, and there are some pretty awkward sentences, especially in the first chapter.
7550073 Like?
7550086
Now, a lot of this is personal opinion and there's nothing strictly grammatically wrong about it as far as I can tell, but sentences like these:
are either too long, strangely phrased, or ambiguous in meaning. The first and second ones, for example, probably should've been broken up into two sentences. The third one I actually had to read multiple times to figure out what you meant to say with that. It's nothing too big, but there are enough non-standard phrasings like this that it gives the impression of being somewhat rushed.
Also typos:
7550096 Lemme change them, then.
7550096 Changed and *fixed.
Eventually, Gregary will come clean...
Right?
It's part of our cul-
NO. SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH. WE'RE NOT FUCKING DO THIS. NO I REFUSE
8249305
Watchu talkin' 'bout, Willis?
....with the last few seasons..... Windegos would die from overeating.
Rooooolllll credits! Lol.
That escalated quickly... Nice story development