A request by Georg:
Princess Celestia is immortal. So is Philomena, her pet phoenix. Many ponies do not realize the similarity between the two. Twilight Sparkle is one of them.
"Pardon me for saying this, Princess, but you look terrible." Twilight Sparkle paced alongside her mentor as they walked through the corridors of the castle, obviously disturbed from the way she flicked her own wings and was busy biting her bottom lip. "I mean not that you look bad, it's just that--"
A single raised hoof by the Solar Diarch was enough to stop Twilight's rapid babbling. "I'll explain it all when we get out to the gardens, and the fire pit. If I last that long." She laughed, shedding a few additional feathers as they continued their path. "You see—"
Then Princess Celestia burst into flames.
More precisely, she overflowed with flames. Fire did not attach to her body as it might to a burning mortal, but rather, welled up from inside her. It burst out of her, tearing through her skin like it was tissue paper and sending burning flesh wafting through the air. Fire curled out of her ears, rolled out of her mouth. Frozen with horror, some dark part of Twilight's mind couldn't help but note that Princess Celestia farted flames as well. It was an undignified way to die.
Then she was gone, and there were only ashes. The whole thing had taken mere seconds.
"Oh," Twilight said. Then she started screaming.
"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." Twilight paced back and forth in the throne room. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her face was wet with tears. "What do I do? What I do? It just happened and..." She sniffled. "I can't rule Equestria. I'm not ready!"
"Twilight Sparkle," Luna said, "would not I be the next in line for the throne? I would make a fine rul—"
"Luna, go help some fillies with their nightmares; I'm being serious!" Twilight snapped the words out, her tail lashing too and fro.
"Hmmph!" Luna turned up her nose. "Have it your way then." She stalked out.
"Oh, what do I do?" Twilight bit her lip, pacing back and forth in the empty room. "I have to tell ponies what happened. But I can't tell them the truth! What, alicorns spontaneously burst into flames? There will be a panic. Ponies will wonder if Luna and I are next. I need to make something up. I could, uh..." Her pacing accelerated. "Say she went on vacation! Yes. That's it. A long and unscheduled vacation. Or maybe she's on a retreat. To the sun! No, that won't work..."
The door to the throne room opened, and one of the royal guard poked his head in: "Excuse me, I'm looking for Princess Celestia. She's late for-"
"Princess Celestia is dead!" Twilight whirled, jabbing an accusative hoof at the guard. It took her a moment to find her next sentence. "She's uh... I killed her! With magic. Because I'm evil. And I rule Equestria now!"
"Oh." The guard paused. "So are we like, fascist?"
"Uh..." Twilight frowned. "Uh... yes?"
"Cool." He nodded. "I'll let the guys know."
Then he shut the door and left.
Flames shot out of Celestia's urn. The vessel shattered, and from the smoke, a young alicorn emerged. She was barely taller than Twilight, white coated and rainbow-mained, with a peppy and youthful disposition. "Surprise!" she shouted, "I..."
She froze. The throne room was made from grey stone and black banners. The throne itself was made of iron, carved out of a single imposing block. Rows of guards in sharp uniforms stood at attention down the main row. The friendly and colorful bureaucrats were gone, replaced with rows of stern-faced stallions with grey uniforms and wire-frame glasses.
Twilight was frozen in place. From the chalkboard and stickynotes nearby, she'd been trying to lead an academic brainstorming exercise on which tiny country to invade first.
Then Celestia looked at the clock. "Twilight," she said, her tone stern. "It's been two hours."
9195111 She ripens, like any other cheese.
C'mon Celly, you know you should be proud! The betting pools capped at an hour and a half
But they’ve been very productive hours, Princess. Do I get any extra credit points for that?
Darn it Twilight!
9195111
She dissolves into seawater and is reborn from the foam every new moon. Naturally.
9195130
Luna, La Grande Fromage Plus Fort
9195111
She could be consumed by shadows?
9195246
Are you implying a symbiosis between Vashta Nerada and Cheese?
9195263
Oh, you naive fool. You think cheese needs any such creature to be of darkness?
Cheese is formed as dairy is attacked by billions of microscopic organisms, perfecting it by ravaging it. It is born of destruction and death, fermenting in the hatred of a thousand tiny germs fighting each other for dominance.
It was born dead.
This is the best one.
9195344
That was metaphorical this would be literal.
Magnificent. Especially the last line.
9195148 "It was a perfectly normal mistake." Twilight Sparkle kicked a nearby sea shell and watched as it tumbled into the coiling ocean waves, vanishing with a little silver splash. "Can't believe I snapped at you, Princess Luna. I'm supposed to be the Princess of Friendship, and I treated you so poorly. I don't know why you even still talk to me, let along take me along to this seaside vacation spot."
"It is a special place, filled with the magic of the night, that I wish to share with a special friend who occasionally makes understandable mistakes," said Luna, looming like a shadow in the darkness as clouds scudded by overhead. "The ocean tides are controlled by our moon, rising and falling as we command. Do you see?" The Princess of the Night stopped at the edge of the surging ocean waves with only her hocks damp in the seafoam that lay deep on the sandy beach.
"It's... the ocean, Princess Luna. I'm really not feeling any more magic from it than anything else. What's this?" she added as Luna stepped out of her silver boots and floated her accouterments over to the dry beach sand, leaving herself naked to the ocean spray.
"The magic I speak of is in the company one keeps," said Luna, stepping forward into the waves until they lapped against her chest, being followed by a wide-eyed Twilight Sparkle. "The sea is eternal, ever changing and unchanging, encompassing the globe with its power. Wherever my moon shines, there is the ocean also, reflecting its glory. I am one with it, and its power refreshes my own when I am weak."
Then a wave broke over the dark princess, and nothing but seafoam drifted away where she had stood.
Twilight Sparkle watched with thin lips and a deep scowl before turning back for the dry beach and picking up Luna's clothes. "I swear, if Cadence does this to me too..."
9195802
So basically, Luna is a Kelpie?
New headcanon accepted.
"lashing too and fro"
"lashing to and fro"?
That last line. That last line so made it. :D
9195344
Hmm...maybe they haven't actually devised an immortality ritual for themselves. It needs to be something tied to their power. It depends on how old Cadance is I suppose.
Cadance, I'd assume her rebirth would be significantly more literal. On the one hand it's inconvenient and time consuming to have to grow up and re-ascend as an alicorn, even at an accelerated rate. Plus it's just deeply awkward on a number of levels. On the other hand, she will live as long as long as ponies have love in their hearts. In practical terms, that means that she doesn't need to renew herself. She just auto-respawns whenever she dies, for any reason. She's really hard to get rid of.
For Twilight, it should be tied to either Friendship or Harmony. She might develop a ritual to commune with the Tree of Harmony, burying herself in it's roots and spending a few weeks existing as pure Friendship across Equestria. She comes back with a deep sense of the state of Harmony all across the land.
Hmm, Cadances immortality reincarnation...if she doesn't have auto-respawn, instead she is rebirthed by herself. No-one says that reincarnation has to happen in temporal order. Flurry Heart is Cadance from the future. Game-breaker in a DIFFERENT way.
And she did it in 30 minutes.
~Skeeter The Lurker
9196004
Thank you!
Equestria at War in a nutshell.
This needs to be a secret way for Equestria to turn fascist there. Time to learn how to mod to make this a submod.
9195802
Incredible.
"... and then she just disappeared into the ocean " Twilight moresoly said, "and I was left there for days, waiting for her to reappear. Turns out she reappeared in some beach town in Mareico and partied night and day. Young alicorns are 'frisky' and 'need time to find themselves' ". Twilight started sniffling again and looked bleakly at Cadence, who was finishing making a sandwich while Twilight slumped at the kitchen table.
"Twilight, dear, it's a bit hard the first time you realise that immortals like us alicorns change when we're reborn. It takes a little while to return to our normal selves, and I'm sure it won't be long before Luna comes back looking for you". Cadence considered this a moment, took a bite of her sandwich, and considered it a bit more. "Although, it is Luna. Why, there was that one time she and I .. " she said, trailing off when she noticed Twilight staring at her with horror, tears starting to form. ".. but I'm sure she'll be back real soon, maybe this weekend!". Cadence sighed, took another bit of the sandwich and then putting it down, moving to console Twilight.
"Well, how do you do it? " Twilight muttered. "Find a bunch of ponies and bathe in their blood? Sacrifice foals in dark, satanic rituals?" she cried. Cadence grimaced, then smiled, then hugged Twilight once more while whispering in her ear "Oh, no dear little innocent Twilight. I invite over a nice bunch of stallions and mares, we all consume a considerable amount of alcohol and cover myself in, well, dearie, you can guess - I'm the Princess of Love after all ...". Cadence then giggled and goosed Twilight, "I wasn't going to tell you, but it's almost my time as well. I've got a few .. friends coming over this evening - perhaps you want to stay?"
At this Twilight turned wide eyed to look at her former babysitter, the one who was there for every little oopsie, the one who was nice and gentle and read books to get her to sleep. She whimpered, and then startled when there was a knock at the door and Shining Armor's voice rang out - "Honey, I'm home!". It was too much much for Twilight, and she cannoned out of the room, knocking Shining to the side.
"What the .. what's wrong with Twilight?" Shining said nervously. Cadence smiled and went back to the bench, picking up her sandwich and taking another bite. She turned back and nuzzled Shining when he made it over to her, "Oh, nothing. Just telling Twilight how I refresh myself when age finally takes it's toll".
Shining stopped, and then said in a puzzled voice "You mean how you cover yourself with a bunch of old cardigans smelling of those you love, and then the next morning, wham, you're all young again? What's so scary about that?"
Cadence hugged Shining and smiled something the King of Sharks would be proud of. "Honey, if you ever refer to the Crystal Kingdom as 'the first and the easiest to take over because it's ruler is a pushover, you'll find out'"
9196470 Ah, nothing says true love like a cardigan sweater.
9196470
This is magnificent. Is it all right if I post on my blog?
9195293
Dude:
Most cheeses aren't started by microbial or fungal processes, but enzymes, or even simply by acid.
You take milk, add your curdling agent (which is usually rennet, but can be as simple as lime juice), wait until your milk separates into curds and whey, carefully cut and extract the curd, salt it, put it into a kneading machine until it's a dough, mould it and extract the excess humidity.
With minimal variations, that's your basic white cheese. And with modern industrial techniques, you can obtain a perfectly sterile cheese that can be vacuum sealed.
9196686
Post away
9197155
Cool. Maybe a monologue comparing it to Frankenstein's monster would be more accurate?
9196470 “Twilight?” The door to the castle library creaked open and two worried alicorn princesses poked their noses inside. “It’s been two weeks. Twilight?”
A flick of the switch turned on the library lighting, a soft but cheery glow that was just right for reading the immense number of books crowding the crystal shelves. Normally, Twilight Sparkle could be found on the floor in the middle of a collection of cushions, surrounded by a dozen or more books in the process of being read.
This evening, there was nothing but silence.
“I blame you, dearest sister, for burdening your student with a display of our renewal process before she was ready,” said Luna, stepping inside the library with a quiet clicking noise from the dozens of beaded necklaces she had draped over her shoulders. She stretched dark wings and stepped over to the crystal table which displayed both a sun and moon symbol over the small image of the castle they were standing in at the moment. One gentle brush of dark feathers did not stop the dance of cutie marks around the illusionary castle, but did make a small swirl of dust float away. “You know, Twilight told me once that Spike would sleep for a month if she didn’t wake him up every morning. I didn’t know she was being literal.”
Celestia trotted over to the table in her sister’s wake and put both small hooves up on the surface, swiping across it and examining the film of dust that resulted. “You know I held off my renewal as long as possible. You pushed yours just so you’d wind up in Mareico during party season.”
“Every night in Mareico is party season,” said Luna with a shake to her neck that made the accumulated bead necklaces rattle. “So many young and handsome stallions who truly appreciate the night.”
“When we find Twilight, you get to explain to her what each of those necklaces mean,” said Celestia as she peered under the table.
“Better yet, I’ll take her there so she can experience it for herself.” Luna giggled before a more serious expression took over. “Celly, just why are you looking under the furniture for our missing Twilight?”
“When she’s stressed, Twilight wants to read,” said Celestia, scooting up onto Twilight Sparkle’s crystal chair and frowning in concentration. “We both… Well, all three of us stressed her out quite a bit by showing her how we refresh ourselves. If she was still my student, I would expect to find her behind the throne, reading out of her stash of books she keeps hidden in there for book emergencies.”
Luna looked around the packed shelves of Twilight’s library, then sauntered over to the cushion pile. “Well, this is the best place she has to read, but I don’t see her anywhere. Maybe if we just rested for a while— Ow!”
Celestia scurried over to where her larger little sister was rubbing her rump and scowling into the pile of cushions. “What is it, sister?”
“She didn’t put all of her books away. There’s—” Luna’s dark magic levitated up a thick tome, clad in a familiar lilac tint and with Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark on the cover. The two alicorns stared at it for a while before the stress between them seemed to evaporate, and they shared a mutual giggle.
“That explains why she has been missing,” said Celestia. “Books exist to be read, after all.”
“One must wonder,” started Luna with a thoughtful expression, “when was the last time we spent time with Twilight?”
“There’s no time like the present.” Celestia settled down next to her sister and opened the book, enjoying the tale of a young unicorn who found the magic of friendship with five unlikely ponies, reunited two sisters, and went on to become a princess herself.
She particularly liked the ending, because it was a new beginning, like all good stories.
9197820
If anything, I compare cheesemaking with bakery, except that one is a cold process and the other is hot.
If you must find how to gross people out, you could mention that most fungal cheeses are perfectly fine white cheeses that are intentionally contaminated with fungal strains. Either contaminated as you knead the curd, or injected with the contaminant after having strained and shaped it.
odt.co.nz/sites/default/files/styles/odt_story_slideshow/public/slideshow/node-1361434/2017/12/20171106_104543.jpg?itok=6wglQ5eJ
img.povar.ru/uploads/b1/4f/38/68/sir_bliu_v_domashnih_usloviyah-181163.jpg
9198072
Coda to the Coda to the .. Codaception?
It was the most ordinary of days - the sun was shining, the birds were birding, and spike was doing his taxes while Twilight interrupted occasionally with both criticism and praise.
"No, no, no! Spike, your college textbooks can't be used as a deduction for your part time job, even if it's in the same field!"
Spike looked at Twilight sitting across from him at the table, her book forgotten as she hoofed through his Form 27A, Part B. He'd put it down for one second. He looked at her and then he sighed, took it back from her and scribbed out Line 15, muttering something about the "Princess of Taxes" and her authoritarian ways.
Twilight melancholy smiled, content. It'd been a long time this time, Spike being away from her. He was growing up, spreading his wings, and ...
*Poof*
White with blue stripes. Hmm, so her brother had finally learned that spell. Spike reflexly grabbed it, opening the seal and started reading it aloud.
"Okay, so apparently Her Royal Pain-in-the-Dock is still in her Goth phase ..."
Twilight grimaced. She thought she'd convinced Flurry to give it up when she'd last visited.
"... and Shining thought things were getting better, and her birthday was coming up, and Shining asked her what she wanted for her 18th birthday, and she said she'd been talking to her favourite aunt who'd recommend something her mother did all the time .."
Twilight hmm'd. It'd been a quick visit and she'd been a bit under the weather, so it was all a bit blurry.
".. and Flurry'd said what she wanted, and it was totally unacceptable.. "
It was coming back to twilight. Hmm, was it ..oh. Oh. Twilight grinned. Revenge could be sweet, but it was also a dish best served cold. Very, very cold. It had taken way too long to realise that Cadence had been winding her up.
Wait a minute. She could deal with her brother, but Cadence was likely to be a bit of a problem.
"Spike, does Shining say where Cadence is in all this?"
Spike read on, getting a little puzzled.
"Oh, yeah, seems she was out of town on some diplomatic mission .."
Oh, yeah, that's fine. She had time.
".. but apparently Shining can see her coming back from the station .."
"Okay, this is a problem, but it's manageable. She'll have to take the train to here, and that'll take her a while. Or maybe even fly, but we've still got time".
Spike looked at Twilight - she wasn't quite at the hyperventilating stage, but he could see the pupils dilating. It was just like old times.
"Twilight, didn't you say you taught her how to teleport last time you were there?"
Twilight considered this for a split second then paled. "Spike! Go Bag! Now!"
2 weeks later
The sun was shining, the birds were birding, and all the townspeople were strangely distant as Twilight and Spike slowly ambled back to the castle. Mayor Mare's replacement had mumbled something about the Palace paying for all the damage, but Twilight really didn't care. It had been a most enjoyable time in Mareico, and Luna's explanation of how to get the rainbow necklace had been most helpful.
Everything was fine until they got to the door, or what was left of it. What should have been a giant, gaudily covered entrance was now nothing more than a giant, jagged hole. That was easily repairable, but the smell of brimstone wafting through it foretold many, many weeks of work. The pair made their way past the entrance, through the hallway, left, a right, past the Trixie not meeting their eyes, past a Starlight Glimmer who was definitely very unhappy, and finally into the throne room.
Spike surveyed the majestic crystal lance stuck into Twilight's throne, the note nailed by said lance into the throne, the words "I WILL MURDER YOU" pulsing with an eldritch light, and turned to Twilight with a sigh.
"Twilight, what's an 'alicorn renewal orgy'"?
Twilight looked around and turned to Spike, a satisfied grin on her face. "Totally worth it"
9197820
Or something a little more gross than usual:
The fungal strain used to make Limburger cheese happens to be the same strain that gives humans athlete's foot.
9198139
I was going for "ironically badass' but that's still cool. Thanks!
Here's one rarity turns into a stallion accidentally and eventually realizes she has fallen in love with AJ
Or
Spike finds a dragoness friend and rarity gets jealous only for spike to have been revealed to have set her up by paying a pen pal to get rarity jealous and date him and he succeeds.
I for one welcome our new Alicorn Overlord.
"In my defense, everyone seemed really enthusiastic about the fascism idea."
9195344
Cadance gets born from a massive orgy. Twilight hatches from a chrysalis after a bookworm eats enough pages.
9195130
So she gets stinkier and stinkier until someone throws her away or eats her?