Chapter 3
Twilight Sparkle, standing just inside the door, gave herself a mighty shake to free herself of snow. Being an alicorn, it caused the whole of the house to shake, and Sumac blinked in alarm while Boomer scurried over the wooden floor, her claws scratching, scrambling to reach him. The little dragoness looked distressed, and with a leap, she took flight, gliding, and crash landed onto the couch beside Sumac.
Spike took a more casual approach to snow removal, and brushed it off with his claws.
“Stab!” Boomer cried and she pointed at her skinny backside. “Ow! Ow! Owie!”
“Oh no!” Sumac watched as Boomer pantomimed her injury by poking her backside with her tiny, curved claw.
“We both got our vaccinations and our boosters,” Spike said as he helped Twilight pull off her heavy coat. The dragon had to brace himself against the floor, then he heaved and tugged to get Twilight free. The wool coat was clingy however, and did not wish to come along in a quiet, calm manner that Spike would have prefered. “Ugh, it smells like wet horse in here.”
“Spike, take a message,” Twilight commanded.
“Yeah?” Spike looked up at Twilight with an expectant squint.
“You’re a jerk!”
It was Lemon Hearts who laughed first, and then with a swish of her tail, she took off for the kitchen with a wide grin upon her face. Trixie helped Twilight pull off the rest of her wet outerwear, while Twinkleshine scooped up Boomer so the little dragoness could be dried. After a moment of hesitation, Twinkleshine made a casual toss and Boomer landed in the roaring fire, where she began giggling because the flames tickled.
Spike took one look at Boomer and then joined her in the fire. Steam hissed and sizzled from both dragons, who were dried in an instant in the crackling, spitting flames. Boomer made the most of it and began rubbing herself with cherry-red embers, as if she was taking a bath and washing herself with soap.
“Tra-la-la-la-la!” she sang while scrubbing.
“You know,” Trixie remarked, “you’d think that you’d get used to that, but you don’t. I still feel panic when she does that. A great and powerful sense of motherly panic.”
Twilight, who nodded in acknowledgment, crossed the room so that she could warm herself by the fire. She spread her wings, struck a majestic pose, and almost knocked a lamp over. The house was made with unicorns or earth ponies in mind, creatures who did not need to spread their wings indoors, and the cosy living room now felt cramped.
“They told me not to fly through a blizzard, but I didn’t listen,” Twilight grumbled while she stood there with a ferocious scowl. “It’s not so bad down here in Ponyville, but up near Canterlot? Ugh!”
“I got airsick.” Spike stepped out of the fire and then stood there on the hearthstone so that he might cool off. “And Boomer fell off. Twilight had to rescue her. And then I fell off when Twilight went swooping after Boomer. Not a fun trip.”
“Fun!” Boomer screamed in a shrill, over-excited voice and then she began to dance in the crackling flames while shaking her frills. Reaching out, she grabbed Spike’s tail, gave it a tug, and looked at him with pleading eyes, hoping that he might join her once more. When he did not, Boomer threw herself down into the glowing cinders and began to roll around, all while humming to herself.
The spicy scent of chai filled the living room and Sumac was able to lift his head just a bit when he sniffed. With halting, jerky motions, he kicked out his front legs, stretched a bit, and continued sniffing the delightful aroma that was drifting into the living room from the kitchen. Spike, now cooled off, stepped off of the hearthstone and onto the wooden floor, cautious. When he saw that the wood did not burn, he waddled away to join Lemon Hearts in the kitchen, the room where Spike felt the most comfortable.
“Twilight, you okay?” Trixie asked while deep furrows of worry appeared upon her brow.
In response to Trixie’s question, Twilight took several deep breaths, then turned her head to look at her half-sister. “Just all the usual worries all acting up at once. Keeping everypony safe. Keeping Ponyville safe. I’m worried about Moondancer. I have this terrible dread that everything will go wrong before Hearth’s Warming.”
Sumac’s ears perked at these words.
“Rarity has asked me to be the guest of honour at some big holiday party… a fundraiser. I don’t know if I am up for it, but I can’t tell her no. To many needy ponies. Everything is just stressful right now.” Twilight folded in her wings, turned about, and her gaze fell upon Sumac. “You’re growing socks.”
“I don’t see ‘em,” Sumac grumbled.
“Any visitors?” Twilight asked. Then, with her eyes narrowing, she added, “Special visitors?”
“Nopony from the future… yet.” Sumac angled his eyes to look at Twilight. “You?”
“Sunburst, Starlight, you, and myself.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed even more. “Starlight, our Starlight, the Starlight from the present, she has a worrisome theory that her acts of time travel might have caused ripples in the timeline. Neither one of us are certain of what that means. Starlight is getting paranoid and she insists that there is some outside force working to correct whatever damage has been done. I don’t think that’s possible, but hey, you never know, right?”
“She has a compelling theory.” Twinkleshine’s ears perked and she began rubbing her chin. “She’s been sharing her notes with me. Starlight believes that ripples, once they are put into motion, cannot be stopped. Even if you prevent the pebble from being dropped into the water, so to speak, the ripples will still happen because the fabric of space and time, once touched, cannot be untouched. So, even though she stopped the rock from dropping, there are still consequences of her actions manifesting because no action can be completely undone. Time and space still registers that something has happened and the ripples persist.”
“Immutable events.” Within seconds of uttering these words, Sumac felt every eye in the room on him. “What? Vinyl’s been teaching me stuff. I kinda know what it is, even if I don’t fully understand it.”
With the sound of claws scratching on stone, Boomer crawled out of the fireplace and began cooling on the hearthstone, bringing with her a mess of ashes. She was oblivious of the conversation in the room, and if there were any lingering bad feelings from getting a shot in her behind, she didn’t show it.
With a somewhat random suddenness, Sumac felt the need to voice one of his concerns and he cried out, “Is Boomer getting her own cup of tea?”
“No,” Lemon shouted back from within the kitchen. “You can share yours.”
“Aw, nuts, I don’t wanna!”
“Why not?”
“She blows bubbles and stuff”—Sumac sucked in a deep, pouty breath—“dragon germs… blech.”
“What’s wrong with dragon germs?” Spike asked Lemon Hearts, and Twilight, who was in the living room, began laughing.
Without any warning whatsoever, Sumac found himself lifted from his spot on the couch and placed down on the floor. He stiffened his legs and much to his relief, somepony was still holding on to him. All of his muscles tensed, including his stomach muscles, and he felt a burble from his backside, a warning to let him know that something wicked this way comes. Two things happened all at once.
The first, Sumac noticed how much larger the room was. Being down on the floor stood out in sharp contrast to being on the couch, being on somepony’s back, or being carried. The doors were enormous, with door levers just out of reach. The fireplace was gargantuan, intimidating, and the flames within were taller than he was. Even the couch, his fortress of comfort, was a colossal construction that dwarfed him. Sumac hadn’t felt this small in a while and it was disorienting to feel this way once more.
The second, he didn’t pitch over right away. His head hung low, his neck weak, but his knees did not buckle and his legs turn into noodly appendages. Much to his shock and surprise, nopony was holding him, and he became aware of the fact that Twilight was staring at him. Had she done this to him? It was possible. Fearing for his balance, he kicked out a too-stiff leg to correct his wobble, but it was too much and he pitched forward. The rest of his legs reacted, and he ambulated about like a newborn foal.
And then, he was walking.
Sort of.
He was walking and falling. With the clopping of hooves, Sumac tried to save himself from an embarrassing fall. Things were working, just like the doctor had promised they would. The connections were resetting and Sumac forgot all about Boomer blowing bubbles into his chai and leaving behind dragon germs. The colt let out a startled whinny and shook his head while he careened towards the wall
Just before impact, Twilight tugged his tail to set him going in another direction. Now, he wobbled around, stumbling, walking and falling towards the kitchen door. His neck sagged and his head was too low, which threw off his balance. Nopony laughed, which was a relief, and Sumac focused on remaining upright.
One hind hoof hit a wet spot on the wooden floor, lost traction, went shooting out from beneath him, and he sat down. His front legs trembled and kicked, trying to keep him sitting upright. At least he didn’t sit on anything delicate, and for this, he was thankful. He looked up and found his mother staring down at him.
“Hmm,” Trixie said, humming out a soft utterance. “Kiddo, I think we’re done letting you lounge around on the couch. No more being a sofa spud—”
“A couch cucumber?” Sumac gave his mother a sheepish grin.
“Yes, that too.” Trixie reached down and booped Sumac on the nose. “I know you’re scared of falling, and I know how scared you are of getting hurt, but I think this proves that you’re capable of a bit more than you realise. Kiddo, how is your neck?”
“Cramping,” Sumac replied, being honest.
“Hmm,” Twilight and Trixie both hummed together.
Twilight, saying nothing else, scooped Sumac up from off of the floor, put his legs beneath him, and then set him down once more. She watched him wobble and Sumac struggled to lift his head to look up at her. Then, Sumac felt a faint tickle of magic beneath his chin, and his head rose, supported by Twilight’s telekinesis. With his head lifted, some, but not all, of his balance returned, and he was able to stand a little better.
“I’m still amazed that Cadance and Radiant Heart were able to fix you.” Trixie breathed these words and she shook her head. “It’s every mother’s nightmare. When they said your neck was broken I wanted to die. Trixie had a great and powerful worry… but she was also ready to spend the rest of her life taking care of you, no matter your condition.”
Trixie was shaking and Sumac could feel a case of the shivers coming on. He didn’t want to talk about what had happened, he didn’t want to think about that day, not today. With Twilight holding up his head, he stood without too much trouble, but his legs were already getting tired. An overwhelming feeling of gratitude, of happiness—the very joy of being alive overcame Sumac, and he stumbled into Trixie’s forelegs just so he could feel her against him.
“Who wants some chai?” Lemon called out from the kitchen.
Held up by Twilight, Sumac sniffed his peppery, spicy chai. His forelegs rested on the edge of the table and he eyeballed Boomer to let her know that she was to stick to her own cup—his was off limits. The table was crowded, which was troubling to the little introvert, but Sumac liked it this way. He liked the sense of family, of closeness, of togetherness.
“How’s Adventus?” Sumac asked, worried about the pony he hadn’t seen for a while.
“Not much has changed,” Twilight replied and she watched as Spike helped Boomer with her chai. “It bothers me that I can’t seem to help him. He’s such a nice pony… if I ever catch the ponies responsible for his condition, I’m going to have Tarnish turn them all into trees.”
Blinking once, Lemon Hearts turned to look at her dear friend. “Really? Are you just saying that out of anger, or do you mean it?”
“Oh, I mean it,” Twilight muttered in reply. “It feels fitting to me… commit crimes against nature and you answer to the Heliophant himself.” Twilight’s ears sagged for a moment, then stood back up. “Our prisons remain a weak spot. Not only are they vulnerable to attack, as we have seen, but I have doubts about how effective they are as a means of rehabilitation.”
“Have you and Princess Celestia been arguing again?” Twinkleshine asked.
“Yes.” Twilight let the word out in a disappointed huff.
“And she’s winning?” Twinkleshine’s eyebrow raised.
“Well of course she’s winning!” Twilight’s wings flapped against her sides and her ears folded back against her head. “She has near-impervious logic and thousands of years of experience. What do I have? A burning desire for change for the sake of change and I have my youthful ideals. It’s frustrating! I can’t have new, original ideas because Princess Celestia has already had them.”
“And tried them?” Twinkleshine lifted up her teacup and peered at Twilight over the top edge of it.
Nodding, Twilight slumped down in a pout and grumbled, “Nihil sub sole novum.”
“So now, you are just tossing out ideas at random with the hopes that you find something she hasn’t tried yet, so that you can take credit for a new idea.”
“Pretty much, Twinkleshine.” Twilight levitated up a coconut macaroon, studied it for few seconds, and then gave it a ferocious, angry chomp. Not caring that her mouth was full, she expressed her feelings, just blurting everything out. “I know I’m being foalish about this, but I have a burning need to prove myself. Princess Celestia is Princess Celestia… Princess Luna… she does things that I’m not even allowed to know about yet. And Cadance… my ‘contemporary’ fellow princess, she is busy ripping Equestria’s bureaucracy to pieces with my mother and rebuilding it.”
“Being a princess isn’t a contest—”
“Yes it is, Trixie!” Twilight snapped up the remaining bit of macaroon and gave it an angry chew. “I goofed! I messed up! Moondancer got replaced and I somehow failed to notice. Me. The whiny little unicorn that wouldn’t shut up about how Cadance was acting strangely before her wedding. I somehow failed to notice a changeling infiltrator in my own castle. Because of my failure, Sumac, Olive, and Strawberry Hearts were taken! The stupid Queen of the Changelings almost secured a real victory for evil! You know what that is? It’s a sign that I need to step up my game, that’s what that is! Potentially world-ending events happened under my watch.”
Hunched over his chai, Sumac became aware of a dreadful tension and the table had gone quiet. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea that he could be used to end the world, it was a concept that he feared that he would never make peace with. It was the Sorcerer’s Curse, and it was awful.
“Twilight,” Trixie said to her half-sister, “you need to remember, you’ve already stopped the world from ending a couple of times. Together, with all of us, I think we can stop it a few times more. We’re getting rather good at it. We’re becoming rather… great and powerful.”
And with that, the table lapsed into silence once more, as everypony drank their chai.
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And my first question is what Twilight's proposed ideas were, and what happened when Celestia tried them.
8089256
When someone has lived so long she has had plenty of time to experiment with various solutions for what ever issues she finds. Sadly for Twilight she doesn't realize or accept Celestia has had many many failures over the years
That's Chronos, isn't it?
8089293
Yes.
And they ate the beagle.
Twilight raises a good point about Equestria's prisons as an effective means of rehabilitation all the same, because based just on what we've seen, they aren't an effective means of rehabilitation. So far, they only seem to really work as a place to dump problem ponies so that society doesn't have to actually deal with them.
Yes, perhaps Celestia has tried everything else Twilight's come up with already, and yes, perhaps none of it has worked before.
The circumstances are different now than when she tried them, though; technology, science, medicine, psychology, magic and society have all advanced (some more than others, perhaps). "I tried it once already," after the circumstances have changed is not a sound reason not to try them again, particularly when it's clear that the current approach is likewise not working.
8089306 Can you remind who Chronos is again or point me in the direction of the explanation
8089379
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/TheWeedverse
Look under the character tab.
8089379
IIRC: There were some old gods, entities that might have been the same class of being as the Celestial Sisters and their Princess Proteges, that are still around in a reduced capacity after they got fucked up by Grogar the first time he showed up.
Chronos, the old god of time, is one of them.
8089263
Now this is an interesting idea I've never even seen before. Spike having been a great villain and threat to Equestria in his previous incarnation.
8089374
And turning them into trees for the rest of their lives is better than trying to rehabilitate them?
No, seriously, you think we should replace prisons for gallows?
8089546
For the ones who honestly cannot be rehabilitated, what is kinder?
Life imprisonment or being a tree?
In Blank, we see a penal colony where ponies are successfully rehabilitated, so yes, movements are made in this direction.
If one only tried them once that isn't a very diligent ethic. The scientific method demands more experiments~!
Fire, tea, winter, comfort, closeness, you've got all the ingredients for a cozy family experience.
8089374
You don't know that that is what's going on here at all. The fact Twilight agrees that Celestia is right all but proves that this isn't the case, otherwise basic-level thinking that even a potato should be capable of could say 'It might be time to try it again with new factors'. Meaning both Celestia and Twilight would have thought of that, and since both of them have discarded pursuing it further, means either it was very recently tried, or is in the process of being tried now and is not producing any positive results.
Both of them are genius-level intellects, with an eye for macro- and micro- planning, details from the miniscule to the large. One just has many lifetimes more experience than the other, and thus the chances Twilight can easily prove her wrong at something they are both putting effort into are smaller. Not impossible, just less likely. For what you've posited to be true is like saying Celestia's lazy, but that ignores Twilight's reassessment which allowed her to accept Celestia's answer as correct, making both Twilight and Celestia look dumb if your view was to be correct. Which, given what we have to go off of, I can't see how it would be.
8089750
Right now, it is situational. Any attempt at a prison system is just putting all of the bad guys in one place where the agents of Grogar can come to collect them. It hasn't been mentioned in story yet, but there have been prison breaks in other places in Equestria, (something that will be addressed in another story, where apropos) so right now there is no good way to focus on rehabilitation or even confinement.
Twilight has nothing, and neither does Celestia, so both of them are just going with what (sort of) works. Confine and hope for the best.
So, it's like riding a bike. You probably remember the motions, but you'll probably also end up on the ground a few times.
Eww, dragon germs. We might be talking about something that can survive at room temperature all the way up to lava. That's kind of concerning.
Who is Adventus again?
I should really read the entire weedverse once more to remind me of every detail.
8089842
He shows up in the last third of PTSSfF.
And that's all I'm saying.
Because people bitch about spoilers in the comment section.
8089767
Best you can do until one of them comes up with something that will work.
8089854 8090107
It's less "wait until they come up with something that will work" and more "wait until the Apocalypse is officially canceled before shaking things up."
8090150
Yes. That is a good way of looking at it.
8089367 OK I'm gingerly stepping around and away from that one!
8089798 Well if microbes can live off the sulphur around a volcano crater and life thrives around undersea black smoker tube vents?
Lemon,"WHAT? That's it Missy, no spreading germs in this house around my precious one, out you go!"
8089842 Honestly I've read almost all of it, and this is a name even I have forgotten about.
This part of the problem with the story being so spread out, is it can be easy to forget certain details, or to figure out the timeline of when certain chapter/stories take place. Maybe someone could create some sort of timeline that could get updated for people to follow, at least in terms of "You should read these chapters/stories, before starting this fanfic". I imagine that would help Kudzu out a lot, with the people who have trouble figuring all this out.
Still...it's really good story stuff. Keep up the good work Kudzu!
8089282 I think it's also hard for Twilight, because she was totally right with her newer ideas she got from the Human World about Government. So she think that clearly she must have more new and fresh ideas....only it turns out not so much. Which is further frustrating for Twilight, considering how much more the other Princesses are doing, along with her own recent failure.
8091893
I find it helps to consider there to be 4 separate (though intermingling) main casts.
Tarnished and co.
Gosling and co.
Flicker and co.
Sumac and co.
Assign characters after which stories they appear in.
double both, possibly intended but a bit strange.
8089842
Adventus is an unnamed pony experimented on by the Ascendancy (who are seperate but related to the Equalists).
He was crudely animancied into an artificial alicorn (a pegacorn with damaged magic) as a successful proof of concept that an unwilling and unprepared subject can survive the Ascendancy's animancy process.
They removed much of his memory and short circuited his brain so he could only say the word "Adventus" when attempting to talk (just like a pokemon).
They dumped him where the good guys could find him so he could act as a living message to the Royal Sisters that the Ascendancy was ready to bring their own idea of Equality to Equestria by force.
Yeesh, I still don't like the idea of old gods running around, doing whatever they want. That's a personal thing, though.
I'm glad to see Sumac recovering, if only a little. And I hate that his power makes him a walking target. I've seen things like this in fiction before, but it's never been as bleak and overwhelming than it is here. I feel for this kid. Why does he have this power? Why does such a power even exist? I remember in Breath of Fire 3, where at least one character wondered that same question about himself. Unfortunately, I don't recall really getting an answer.
Sumac has one power that helps everyone but himself, and another power that could get him whatever he wants, but he has to keep in check. These people who have powers that must be kept in control at all times, why are they there? Why is it necessary for people to be stripped of a level of freedom that everyone else takes for granted? I'm not sure I'll ever understand that.
8142670 They are rare, so maybe they exist because they are needed for good. Without Sumac or someone like him, I'm not sure Equestria would have much of a chance.
Think of what Flim and Flam could have done if they hadn't been criminals. How much easier would Cadence and Velvet's job be if they were working with those two? Or if they helped Celestia with the reporters?
Almost literally true, in the case of Celestia. Both parts of it.
8193240
At least with Gosling there's something new over it.