How I met your princess
“So Mage Meadowbrook, my idol, is pretty much your mom.”
“Eh, it's less official and more of a metaphor. But there aren't many ponies I'd trust more than her.”
“And I love him just as much as one of my own,” Meadowbrook interjected, trotting over with a batter-covered spoon and gently nuzzling Arca. “Here, Arca. Cookies are baking, no point wasting batter.”
“Woohoo!” The stallion wasted no time grasping the utensil and licking the sugary substance off of it. “All this time and it's just like I remember it. Oh, I almost forgot!” Arca dug through his saddlebags, removing a thick tome that appeared to be written recently. “I had to donate your original notebook to the Rainbow Falls library after one too many explosions. But I am allowed to copy it by hoof at any time, so I made you a copy! I know it's not the same, but I want you to have it.”
“My… my notebook is still around?” Meadow sat down next to Juniper and across from Arca, flipping through the book. “And this one is far neater than my hastily written notes. Thank you, Arca.”
“Yeah, I tried to get the original back, but Mayor Silver said, “You may be older than me, but you are certainly not careful! She would have to come get it herself… and I'm not sure the Equestrian historical society would approve! And only take ONE lollipop from the front desk on your way out this time!” Jerk.”
“Right, of course he did,” Juniper let out a sigh.
“Sounds like what I had to put up with, dearie. Remind me to tell you about him when he was little. Regardless, I never did apologize for leaving for so long… I hope you can forgive me, Arca.”
“Oh, I forgave you centuries ago, Boss. You had to do it to protect everypony.” The stallion reached across the table and enveloped Meadowbrook in a hug.
“Thank you, Arca. That's a load off my mind. But now that little Juniper here,” she gestured to the pegasus, whose heart skipped a beat hearing her idol call her by name, “is all caught up, what happened after I left? Why are you still around?”
Juniper tilted her head to the side, curious. “Does it have something to do with the-”
“We do NOT talk about The Duck, Juniper! It's a national secret and Celestia hasn't declassified it yet!” Arca took a moment to recollect himself, taking a deep breath. “...Sorry. I just don't want to think about my arch-nemesis in this place. Anyway, where was I? Ah, yes…”
Believe it or not, a few months after you disappeared, Boss, the swamp and its village hit hard times. There was some kinda argument with the pegasi tribe settling nearby, something about territory if I recall. Anyway, they went from providing rain as normal to alternating between torrential downpours and droughts. The town was either flooded or rationing clean water, and Celestia came to help after a pretty bad flood washed some houses away. Thankfully this old tree has seen worse, so I had ponies sleeping on the floor at all hours. The day I met her was honestly the first step.
She was shocked to learn about everything, as the pegasi had complained about squatters, but we set the record straight. Tribalist jerks. Thankfully those rivalries have faded, but I digress. Celestia told me that you wouldn't be coming back, and why… and all that did was make me double down. But, with no food, we had to move to Canterlot, which was under construction at the time. I wonder if the high-and-mighty Canterlot elite know they are partially descended from swamp dwelling earth ponies? Regardless…
Celestia sat on the cliff overlooking the Everfree forest, where her old castle stood before Luna destroyed a good portion of it. It had only been half a year since then, but she still cried herself to sleep every other night about what she had done.
“Princess-Boss? If I may have a moment?”
Celestia didn't even need to turn to know who that was. Nine years (excluding the unknown amount of time in Discord's reign) had passed since they met and he still insisted on calling her that. “Arcane, please, Celestia is fine. You deserve the honor after saving the denizens of Hayseed Swamp from starvation and flooding. What can I do for you?”
“I… I think I may have a way to save your sister. And Meadowbrook too. But it's only theoretical at the moment…”
Celestia whipped her head around at the eccentric unicorn. He was out of his lab coat as he never wore it around town, and that wasn't often given his odd, almost paradoxical nature.
After all, at 25 years old, and bearing exceptional skills in potions, healing, magic, crisis management, and more, why was he still without a cutie mark?
Still, this had serious potential. Her top mages had flung potential solutions around, but most didn't want ‘Nightmare Moon’ back. But if Arca was giving a suggestion… well, he never did that without the logic and research to back it up. “Save Luna? You think you can actually do that, Arcane? How? Please, tell me!”
The orange pony shuffled on his hooves, his royal purple mane shifting in the breeze. “Well, it started as a way to save Meadow, but I think I can try to save Princess Luna, too! Have you ever heard the legend of the philosopher's stone?”
Celestia paused. It wasn't like Arca to chase myths and legends, but he had been growing more and more desperate in his attempts to get Meadowbrook out of limbo without freeing the Pony of Shadows. “Yes, I have. A mythical stone that can act as a substitute for any alchemical ingredient, create a tonic that can cure any illness, and even turn lead into gold. But why are you considering such a fable?”
Arca steeled himself for what would come next. He had been looking into the potential for this for roughly six years now, but kept hitting brick walls due to the fact that most of the books he needed were locked in Celestia's private archives, with good reason. He had his doubts that Celestia would agree, but he had to try. “Well, Princess-Boss, I think that if I knew how to make a potion to cure the world's ills, I could alter it juuust slightly and make it purge corruption from somepony instead! With it, we could not only return Luna to her old self, but maybe the Pony of Shadows, too, and with him gone Meadowbrook wouldn't need to stay in limbo and could come home!”
Celestia blinked once, twice, three times. It was a stupidly simple, yet impossibly complex plan. Arca would be the pony come up with it, though. “So you want to make the legendary Grand Panacea, and use it to make a potion to cure my sister and Stygian of corruption? Arcane, while I have no doubt you of all ponies could alter a potion of such power, we would require a Philosopher's Stone, first.”
“Exactly! That's why I need your help!”
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This is how he becomes ageless.
9380836
Dude, spoilers! I haven't read that far ahead yet!
You really should. Its on Netflix and it has the English dub which is really good, I would go with Fulllmetal Alchemist Brotherhood since its generally thought to be the superior version.
I wonder how many people dont realize that a ton of ideas used in anime are based in history somewhere.
The only example i can think of off the top of my head...when i was looking up alchemy stuff some-odd years ago, when the only thing i knew was something about turning lead into gold. I discovered...um...i think it was the Ripley Scrolls? Or something like that. In it was the phrase 'The bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame' and i was like "hey that was in Hellsing" i thought they made that up" and i think it also mentioned a philosophers stone but i dont recall.
9380859
Noted. So is brotherhood like a retelling of the origional, or a sequel, or...?
9380868
Its more of a streamlined but more complete version than the original anime. The original was good and had plenty of good moments but the soft reboot of Brotherhood was faithful to the manga and showed the entire manga with ending than the original anime version which did not.
9380865
I based my variant on the stone commonly known in grecian and Roman legend: no known way to create it, but it can do 3 main things: replace any ingredient in any chemical reaction, create a potion or medicine that cures all injuries and illnesses (even reversing aging a few years), and of course, turn lead and other metals into gold.
9380868
The original anime caught up to the manga and the rest of it was, well, "not so good" shall we say. FMA Brotherhood was made after the manga was finished and contains the whole storyline, not half and half.
That reminds me...this is as good a place as any...long ago i had a small book with a collection of short storiea in it...like the monkeys paw....im trying to find one of those stories and have failed so far.
Heres what i remember of it. A bman and woman fall in love. The man refuses to marry her until he can support her properly despite the fact that they could live off her fathers money or she doesnt care if they were living in the streets as long as they are together. One day she claims that while she loves him she has an obligation to her family and she will wait for him but eventually she will have to marry someone else if he doesnt step up. He eventually gets a job with an old alchemist and marries the girl. The old alchemist is working on a potion...it might have been called an energy potion or longevity or something along thpse lines....but it was his lifes work. After having spent three daya and nihhts without sleep working on this potion he exhausts himself and requires sleep so he tells the man to watch over his potion with a few instructions...such as if hte potion turns a gold color i think...but one of the instructions was to not drink it no matter how much it calls to him. He drinks it of course and feels more lively for like a week yhan he ever had before. The old alchemist winds up dieing from the distress of seeing his potion drank but says it worked before passing. The married couple live on but over time she git older while he still looked to be in his twenties. They even had to move once or twice as his wife was accused of witchcraft. I dont remember how the story ends and i want to find this story.
The Stone doesn't have to be a FMA expy, of course. There's another kinder version of the legendary alchemy in the Harry Potterverse of the Stone (depending on which edition you read, it's the Philosopher's Stone or the Sorcerer's Stone, but same difference). Flamiel's synthesis didn't require mass sacrifice, only extraordinary mastery of the alchemist's art. And when your blank flank takes so long to get it's cutie mark, it's gonna be a whopper of a success to get it...
9381428
Yeah, but I heard Pinkie Pie made the philosopher's scone because she's such a good baker
9381429
No, that was just a half-baked rumor.
A Philosopher's Stone: All the wealth you'd ever need. All the life you'd need to spend it. All the health to take or give, for the things that money can't buy. A means to any end. Something like that seems like it would embody the very idea of hope. So, if not a soul, what would one have to sacrifice to create such a thing? The hopes and dreams of the maker? Or pay for that hope by using absolute despair as an ingredient?
There's all kinds of cool ways you could reason making one that isn't Full Metal Alchemist's "The souls of an entire country" answer... Which didn't really make sense given the idea of 'equivalent exchange'. It would indicate a soul is worth anything, from a single grain of sand to another soul, but if that was the case you'd be able to trade anything for a soul right back.
9380859
Best way of watching full metal:
Watch the beginning of FMA(original) up until they visit Liore, then switch over to FMA:BH episode 2, since the beginning wouldn’t be as necessary. At least that’s what I like telling people
I swear to Celestia’s pale white ass, if the compromise was Arca’s soul, I will find you, and leave an angry chicken meme on your doorstep
9381955 I actually like the original anime's ending. It left nebulous the things I felt best left unexplained... and having seen the manga's explanations for them, I am left feeling vindicated as I felt most rather silly and rather typical of anime tropes.
It also had a bittersweet feel to it. There were simply things that couldn't be fixed, and there remained loss and sacrifice.
What I didn't like was the continuations with Shambala and all that. It ruined a perfect 'nonending ending'.
It just felt better dramatically and thematically-speaking. The manga and new one, well, it ended up being a typical 'big bad' situation with an over-powered supervillain... and once that happened you already knew what the outcome would be.
9381429 There was a banker once rumored to have made a Philosopher's Loan... but it turned out it was all just Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme.
Emperor Palpatine did manage to make a Philosopher's Clone in that one Star Wars movie...
No no!... You're not supposed to know it's dangerous. That's what makes for a good story about a legendary item of hope actually being the opposite of that.
Like the first vault on Pandora. Legends speak of untold riches and power beyond imagining!
Nobody expected tentacles...
Well now I'm just even more curious about that Duck... "arch-nemesis" ey?
Probably not, but it would be hilarious to watch them find out
Guess he got his hooves on one, but thinks buck south unil he ended up in the north...