Loop 33
"So, let me get this straight" Rarity said slowly. "You want me to make you . . . armor?"
Astral sighed. She had been expecting this reaction.
"Yes" she said, just as slow. "I picked up Bladecasting and I need armor for a duel. But all the armor I could buy would be too heavy for me, which is bad since my style is agility based. So, I thought, why not find somepony who could make an entirely different type of armor." She finished off the rather long winded explanation with her best 'I'm an innocent filly' smile.
"Well . ." Rarity tried to think of a way to refuse to make armor for a filly, but already her mind had grasped onto the idea, this new exciting concept of creating something she had never done before, and she was already invested. "Alright" she said after a pause. "It will take a bit of research of course" she added as an afterthought.
"Thanks Aunt Rarity!"
"Hmm . . . oh! Yes, you're welcome dear!"
Astral winced at the pain in her joints. She had already mastered the Intermediate spells, and they now did nothing to curb her magical input. She was already preparing for her Advanced Test, hopefully that would stave off the pain for a bit.
She had just entered her room- or, as she was starting to think of it, her home base- wondering about the strange note that had just been deciphered. She pulled out her well worn notebook and started to write in it.
The writer of the note expresses confusion about who I am and why I am in the loops. That seems to imply they are not the one who put me in the loops, or the one giving me magic, but are a spectator of some sort.
Is it possible that somepony else was just brought into the loops and realized I was stuck in one as well?
But the writer seems to express some sort of experience, and at least suspects who the pony behind it all is. Who is the she they are referring to? They also seem to believe I should get out. Get out of where? The time loops? I have no power over those. Ponyville? My home?
Note to self; find out what a keeper and a host is.
A knock at the door made Astral slam the book closed, turning around to see her mother in the doorway.
"Astral" Twilight said, trotting into the room as her daughter hopped down from her desk. Thankfully, Astral had her illusion spell up, so she looked like the same old blank flank. "Rarity told me you had taken up Bladecasting" her mom told her, eyebrows raised, and Astral valiantly fought off a scowl.
Stupid Rarity, and her stupid marriage to the stupid Element of Honesty.
In response, Astral summoned three of her Shards, smiling at her mom's obvious surprise. "When did you start training?" She asked, reaching out to touch one of the Shards.
"At the start of the week" Astral said - quite truthfully.
"Wow! You're really good! You might even get your cutie mark in Bladecasting" Twilight praised, before sobering "but a duel? Are you sure?"
Astral smiled condescendingly. "It's just a mock duel mom, to show me the basic rules. But they recommend I bring armor so I can learn how to maneuver around in it."
Twilight was still frowning. "I want to be there for the duel" she insisted, shaking her head. "When is it?"
Shit.
"Saturday" Astral lied smoothly, before adding "but I would need my armor a couple of days before that, so I could properly break it in."
Her mom nodded, relaxing at the idea of being there to protect her harmless little girl. "Okay, Saturday. It's a date" she added with a wink as she left, and Astral giggled a little.
Between waiting for the armor, learning Germane, avoiding Jam and Butterscotch and trying to lessen the pain in her joints, an idea occurred to Astral, and she hurried to add it to the list.
Goals
- Get a cutie mark
- Help CMC get cutie marks
- See Alchemy
- Graduate from Beginner to Intermediate
- Beat Shining Armour in a duel
- Beat the Princesses in a duel
- Travel
Spend a night away from the castle (treehouse maybe?)
On Thursday evening, Astral was summoned to Sweet Apple Acres to see her new armor.
To be honest, she wasn't a hundred percent sure what she was expecting. She had done her research, and found that most materials that could handle Pegasi lightening, Earth Pony earthquakes and Unicorn's spells were extremely heavily built. While some ponies got light clothing and cast protection spells on it, it was fairly easy to undo said spells.
A part of her had expected Rarity to do a similar thing; make a silk outfit and cast a protection spell on it. That would probably be for the best, and Astral could add to the protection spells, making it fireproof, waterproof, and so on.
What she was not expecting was armor that looked to be made out of light purple metal, covering her chest, barrel and legs. There were flickers of white light in the armor, and, when she tried it on, it was incredibly light.
Seeing her surprised look, Rarity's self satisfied smile grew even larger. "When I did my research on armor, I discovered that all armor is based off armor of the Gods, which, apparently, has no metal on it's stomach, legs or head, since the Gods are seen as indestructible. Since that seemed rather foolish to me, I deigned to cover the stomach and legs, but leave the head open.
There is no metal that would be light enough for you to move around it, so instead, I got Twilight and Starlight's help to solidify the astral plane."
"The astral what?" Astral jerked back, surprised.
"Oh, yes, your namesake. It's also where your mother ascended, and is said to be the Gods old 'hangout' as Rainbow Dash would say. Like magic, you can solidify the astral plane if you can access it, so that's what Twilight and Starlight did. It is incredibly light, sturdy, and can absorb some magic and be used for physical attacks."
Well, I'll be damned. . . .
"That's amazing!" Astral said, genuine, and Rarity acted modest.
"Thank you dear, it's what I do, really. Now, why don't you test it out?"
It worked like a dream, pun aside. It felt no different than having the CMC cloak draped over her shoulders. It also, she noticed, matched her Shards, which was nice.
But while she put her armor through it's paces, her mind was elsewhere.
The astral plane was the hangout of the Gods, huh? Maybe I should visit sometime. . .
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* Kicks in door *
DID SOMEONE SAY LORE??!
I really like this fic, not only because I LOVE morally ambiguous characters but I also love a good bit of world building and lore. And this fic has plenty of all three!
So, gather around folks, as we share information and theories!
First off, for those who haven't read Chasing Shadows, it does introduce a couple of interesting tidbits on the Lore of Reading4HalfMyLife's Next Gen Verse, the Echoverse.
Firstly, and most important, it tells us that Gods are not the creators of their respective fields (chaos, harmony, light etc) but in fact physical embodiments of all those things.
Secondly, the Gods are not the only physical embodiments. The story follows the light and the dark as they change their forms many times. It's described as pieces of them leaving whatever form they were last. Think of an orange segment. Every time the light or dark formed something new, some of the pieces would stay attached to the ''orange'' while some segments pealed off. As well as Ray and Ebony, the light and the dark have made up stars, the sun, the moon, dark magic, light magic and presumably others.
Thirdly, a piece of darkness and light went down to Equestria as living creatures, and every time they die, they are reincarnated into another form. But they only remember a certain amount of time.
Fourthly, the pieces that reincarnate eventually decide to 'bury' themselves into the minds of two foals, a zebra and a unicorn. They present themselves as imaginary friends, which the foals accept. The unicorn and zebra are called keepers. The dark and it's keeper, the unicorn, vanish one day, and the light and it's keeper, the zebra, find them.
Okay, so this is really important, obviously, as it shows that there's more than one physical construct of Light, Darkness, and I'm assuming Chaos, Harmony, Space, and, most importantly, Time. Maybe that's what Discord is?
But it also tells us what exactly a Keeper is, which was referenced in the note. Going by the actual definition of a host, that means a Host has their motor control's taken from them, like the embodiment's grab the wheel and start driving instead, a Keeper seems to be when the embodiment's are more docile, living in the back of their head.
I'm not exactly sure what a Host is, but Astral is not a Keeper, that much is clear.
What is also dropped into this story several times is the war between Ebony and the other Gods. Now, it's made clear that the writer of the note thinks either Kronos or Ebony did something. Which is odd, until you remember that Ebony stole the others magic, which would include Kronos' time magic.
So, here's what I got;
Ebony, still locked up, but not suppressed enough, manages to reach her power long enough to try and get a new body. Maybe she's worried about Astral overthrowing her, so she uses Kronos' time magic to trap her in a time loop, in an attempt to break her down. She's giving Astral not only her magic, but the magic of the other Gods that she stole. This is why it's so powerful, and why Astral could be brought back from death.
But, most importantly;
Who is Morning Dew, the unicorn colt that is the dark's keeper?
While Grace, the light's keeper, is important, Reading4HalfMyLife makes a point of writing in the authors note at the very end of the story that we have already met Morning Dew. Not Grace. Morning Dew. So, I read all Reading's other fics, all of one of which take place in the Echosverse.
Nothing.
There is a zebra in the Misty Rose arc, but he's a he and is not called Grace. That is the closest association I can get. There's only one other unicorn so far, which is a little unicorn filly called Magical Melody, the daughter of Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. I don't know, maybe Morning Dew is actually in this fic as a side character, and I just missed her?
Anyways, thanks Reading, for making a genuinely interesting universe.
9212346
Don't worry. You HAVE met him
So Astral is going to end up as a sort of Antihero, rather than a full on villain. Good to know.
The armour looks very nice, even if the lack of helmet looks very odd to me.
9212789
She's absolutely going to dabble in the life of the villian though.
Thanks for that! And yeah, I found that I couldn't draw a helmet at all, and Astral's fringe made it even harder so I just didn't do it