The Struggles of Running a Book Store

by arcanica_scripta

Eldritch Magic VS A Determined Pie

Arcanica sighed heavily as she hid herself behind a bundle of balloons. “Every week it’s something with this town,” she muttered as she sipped at her punch. It had only been a handful of days since Twilight and the others had returned from delivering that tree to Applejack’s cousins, and already something big was happening in Ponyville. That something? Celestia wanted to have lunch in Ponyville to catch up with Twilight.

Normally, Arcanica would have welcomed the Princess visiting their town, especially since she had grown to appreciate her fans, but from her conversations with the former Heralds who had been visiting her, a majority of the last thousand years’ Heralds had one common factor in their deaths or ascensions: Celestia. Sure, she hadn’t used her powers to unleash and Eldritch hell on anypony, but who knew how serious Celestia was about handling Heralds? So, she decided to play it safe in case Celestia knew just what she was.

“Arcanica? What are you doing over here?” She looked up from her drink and snack and saw Twilight nervously smiling. “I’ve been looking all over for you! Not in a panicky sorta way, but in a brisk way! Yeah, brisk!” She nervously chuckled. “Anyways, the Princess wanted to meet you, since you’re my newest friend, and I’ve been looking all over for you.”

“Oh, she does?” Not good, not good at all…

“Uh huh!” Twilight teleported her to the other side of the table she had found refuge behind and began dragging her towards the largest table in the bakery. “Apparently, she’s a big fan of your work and has wanted to meet you for a while so if you would just introduce yourself to her- Hi Princess!”

Evidently, Twilight had been moving faster than either of them realized, since they were now directly in front of the very amused Princess. A seemingly empty birdcage stood behind her. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle. Is this the friend you’ve been writing to me about?”

“Yup, this is her, my newest friend! Who I’ve written about in my reports. Here to meet you.” Arcanica resisted the temptation to pull a page out of Storm Breaker’s book and roll her eyes. Clearly, her friends got way to bent out of shape over the Princess, if Rarity and Applejack’s behaviors at the moment were any indicator.

Instead, she bowed her head to the alicorn out of respect. “Your highness, it’s an honor.” Don’t panic, stay calm. It’s just Princess Celestia… who has almost a thousand years of dealing with Heralds under her belt STOP THINKING ABOUT IT!

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Arcanica.” She then grinned coyly at her. “Or should I say, A.T. Hoofcraft?”

This time, she actually did roll her eyes, much to Twilight’s terror. “I’d prefer ‘Arcanica’, Princess. I only write Hoofcraft on my books.”

“She rolled her eyes at the Princess…” From the sounds of it, Twilight might be slightly braindead after her little stunt.

“Then Arcanica, it is.” She extended a wing to gesture to the seat to her right. “Please, sit. I’m excited to finally meet one of my favorite authors from this current age.”

She blushed hearing the Princess’s praise. “I’d hardly consider myself that good, Princess.” She quickly moved around the table, seating herself between Applejack and Princess Celestia. “Even with all my awards, I’m certain most of my appeal came from how mysterious I had been with my identity.”

“Well while I’m certain that was part of what got you noticed, your works sell quite well based on their own merits.” She took a sip from her tea and studied Mrs. Cake as she walked away after quickly refilling her cup. Letting out a thoughtful hum, she turned her attention back to Arcanica. “So tell me, what sort of inspiration does a pony have where they can write stories like yours so well?”

Oh no… What do I tell her?

“How about a half-truth?” She fought down a shiver at the proximity of Storm Breaker’s snout to her ears. Stupid specters… “Tell her as much as you can without mentioning the Heralds or Outer Planes.”

“Well, I’ve been prone to nightmares since I was a filly, I suppose.” The chills left her, so Storm Breaker had left her. “Combined with an overactive imagination, it wasn’t long until those nightmares gave rise to my first stories.”

“Really now? Well I must admit, that’s very impressive, Arcanica.”

“Thank you, Princess.” I don’t think she bought it.

She took a bite of cake, her body shuddering ever so slightly at the flavor before resuming her questions. “So from what Twilight told me and your own admission, you’ve used at least one alias over the years, correct?” Getting a nod, she smiled in a playful manner. “So, just how many authors have actually been the same red unicorn?”

Realizing they were changing topics, she chuckled. “Not that many, actually,” she admitted. “I’ve only used a handful of identities over the years, and even then, I recycle one every so often.” She took a slice of cake for herself as Pinkie Pie got dragged out of the room by the bakers.

“Page Turner was my last one, but before that one, I’ve called myself Quill Stroke, Strange Tales, and at one point I was Fantasy Scripture.” She chuckled as she shook her head at all her fake names. “I went through far too many lies before Twilight and the others became friends with me. I decided to trust they’d support me, and so far it’s been paying off and they’ve been my close friends.”

“Friendship is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?” The two sat there in amicable silence before Twilight brought Fluttershy over to speak with the Princess. As the two mares spoke about pets and the Princess’s bird made its presence known, Arcanica stared at the diseased-looking bird in shock.

The Princess has a freaking phoenix as a house pet?!

“Aw, Philomena is getting ready to combust! How precious!” cooed Rune Cluster from beside the cage. The bird couldn’t see her, but that didn’t stop the former unicorn from admiring the bird. “It’s been so long since I last saw this bird! Last time I saw her, she was a little chick! You know, I never did figure out how or why they self-immolate to refresh their bodies.” Arcanica turned away from the bird but kept an ear open for the pink specter. “My theory was that it had something to do with the residual chaos from when Discord ruled Equestria, but I was never able to obtain a specimen long enough to study the phenomena.”

Fortunately, Arcanica was spared from the previous Herald’s antics by her dissolving into a mist as Celestia rose to announce her departure. Once the Princess and her guards had departed, Arcanica followed Applejack out the door. She had a sizeable plate with her for Blossomforth since she had covered while Arcanica was at the luncheon. I should really give her the week off, she thought to herself.

A quick trip back to her store, and one argument about paid time off, she was left to her own devices in her store. She had retrieved the black book from her apartment as well as the draft for her version of Great Pillar’s tale. She didn’t exactly need to have both books on her, but she felt more at ease knowing where the Eldritch spell book was at all times.

As she resumed writing in the draft of her newest work, she felt something off around her. “Why do I feel like I’m being spied on right now?” Covering her face with the draft book, she felt her eyes warm up as she used the life detection spell. “Oh, that’s who it is,” she muttered. She cancelled the spell before resuming her work. For some reason, Pinkie Pie was outside her bookstore and was watching her. She wanted to question the mare’s reasons, but simply passed it off as “Pinkie Being Pinkie”.

As long as she didn’t do anything with forbidden magic, she had nothing to worry about, so she decided to let the mare be. She kept writing and making notes on the fall of Marethon and how to work the afflicted Loveless Ones out of the plot. If those things were still out there somewhere, then the last thing she wanted was to get their attention, especially since a trip to the library yielded no information on such a creature.

Every so often, she’d use the spell to check for her friend, and began to get a little annoyed at Pinkie Pie randomly leaving and coming back to spy on her. I want to ask, but I feel like I’d regret doing so.

---

“You do know the pink one is still following you, correct?”

She rolled her eyes as she walked through the market place. She was stocking up on groceries, and another former Herald decided to tag along. The brown earth pony was far from memorable, and had no visible signs of transformation besides his eyes, leading her to believe he hadn’t used his powers for too long before something went wrong.

“Yes, Stone Chip, I’m aware Pinkie Pie is following me.” She made sure to mutter her answers when she wasn’t at a stall and moved to grab a bunch of bananas. As Arcanica inspected the produce, the Herald was most likely tracking Pinkie Pie’s movements. He didn’t speak again until she handed over the bits and placed the fruits in her saddlebags.

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

She shook her head as she read over her shopping list. “Unless it gets too serious or bad, I have no reason to treat her any different for following me around. She does weird things all the time.”

“So then you find it acceptable that she saw you speaking aloud just now?” She froze before hastily putting her shopping list away and making to leave. “She recently acquired a pair of binoculars, and is using them to observe your actions.”

“Well then it’s time to get away,” she muttered. She ducked into an alley and melted into the shadows cast by the two buildings. After the number of times she had indulged herself by using the Shadow Walking spell, she was no longer affected by the disorienting effects of entering the Plane of Shadows, as well as it’s disorienting concept of physics and dimensional proportions. As she stood on the vertical surface that she entered onto, she saw the silhouette of her friend zipping about. It was a little frightening to see the shadows of ponies flit about without their bodies, but she had forced herself to get used to seeing disembodied shadows.

The Party Pony’s shadow stopped abruptly near her and began to look around. The shadow made a series of distorted garbling noises before vanishing past her and along the curving surface that she stood on. “I’ll never get over this place turning a flat alley way into a rollercoaster with its own gravity.”

{We are glad that you find enjoyment from our realm, Mortal.}

She shuddered at the sudden volume driving directly into her mind. Looking ‘up’ (she really needed to figure out directions for when you’re standing on a wall), she saw a much darker shadow than anything else in the naturally black and violet realm. A pair of unearthly yellow dragon eyes stared down at her from a vaguely equine head made entirely of darkness. Given the size of the entity over her, she knew full well who was glaring at her.

“Oh, my apologies, Lord Shevkiral,” she said with a quick bow of the head. “I didn’t realize you were here when I entered.”

{Of course you failed to notice us, Herald. We are this realm as this realm is us. We do not exist within a mere location of this plane.} She winced at its words. This was the one Outer Being she had properly met thus far, Ydrex’Ktala not counting since that was in Storm Breaker’s memories, and its volume and speaking habits were still something she was trying to adjust to. {Now, inform us as to why you have chosen to enter our plane to escape when you are not in danger?}

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’m escaping,” she said awkwardly. She made to move, but the god’s tail materializing prevented her from leaving. “My friend was spying on me and I was concerned that she saw me communicating with a former Herald.”

{While we are permissive of your use of our plane per the contract of the Necroscriptus, we are… disturbed by your evident lack of respect for our realm that you would use it as a mere hiding place like those before you, regardless of utilizing it to hide yourself.}

Arcanica winced at the implication the god was making. While Shevkiral was nothing like Ydrex’Ktala in regards to its disposition, she knew it was referencing the habit several Heralds developed of leaving their enemies to wander the Plane for all of eternity. “I assure you, my usage is not akin to how the spell was used centuries ago. I am simply evading a friend.”

The shadow entity made a growling noise that sounded like a pair of stones grinding against one another. {Why do you hide? We were under the impression that mortals form friendships to no longer hide from one another.}

She looked in the distance and took note of Pinkie’s shadow no longer being visible. “It’s not so much hiding on purpose, but I’m trying to see why she’s been following me around for the last couple days.” Activating the spell to exit, she placed her head through the ground, frowning at the disorientation of appearing from the wall this time. With nopony in sight, she withdrew her head. “Alright, coast is clear. Sorry about the misunderstanding, Shevkiral.”

She faltered, seeing that the Outer Being was no longer present, but decided to simply leave and not hang around longer than necessary. She didn’t care what Storm Breaker told her; the monsters that dwelled there were going to eat her one of these days. Stepping back into the alley, she made her way back onto the streets before resuming her trip home.

---

Pinkie Pie was a mare on a mission. For the past couple weeks, she had noticed something most unusual about her friend Arcanica. The mare, against all reason, was somehow getting around Ponyville faster than anypony and she wasn’t sure how. Nopony other than her moved around like that, and she doubted Arcanica knew all of the shortcuts she did. It wasn’t teleportation, since the mare in question had confessed on numerous that the extent of her advanced magical studies had ended at illusion spells, and her talent wasn’t related to magic as a whole.

At the same time, however, she couldn’t be running everywhere, since she was never winded upon arrival or looked as though she had overexerted herself. Not only that, but if she was running everywhere, how had Dashie not seen her on her way to Sugar Cube Corner from Twilight’s library when they saved Rarity?

What really confirmed something was up to her was the day Princess Celestia had visited Sugar Cube Corner the other day. Pinkie remembered that day well. All of the cakes she had helped make, the music and decorations she had painstakingly picked out, the chocolate fountainy goodness-

PINKIE!

Oh right, getting off topic. Anyways, she remembered Arcanica leaving with Applejack so she could bring some food to Blossomforth. Now the walk from the bakery to the bookshop wasn’t a long one, but it wasn’t a very short one. Which is why when Blossomforth came in to get a milkshake just three minutes after Arcanica had left, she was suspicious. The pegasus wouldn’t leave her job early, and Arcanica would never run with a plate of food, so how was it all possible?

Since then, she had been tailing her friend in the hopes of figuring out just how exactly the mare was getting around Ponyville so quickly. It had been two days so far, and yet still nothing! She had to be hiding something from her about how she was getting around, but Pinkie couldn’t think of anything that would work! Arcanica couldn’t fly, she didn’t know the teleportation spell, and everypony knew that aliens and their UFOs preferred either areas with acres of corn fields or quiet mountain towns, and Ponyville was neither of those!

When she left the store for the afternoon to go grocery shopping, she was convinced that she finally had the mare right where she wanted her… until she saw that Arcanica was casually walking to the marketplace. She kept looking to the side, which immediately set off red flags for Pinkie. Did Arcanica know she was following her? Was that why she wasn’t using her secret traveling technique? Currently, her subject was looking at purchasing a ripe bunch of bananas.

Making sure to keep her distance, Pinkie Pie dug around in her mane before getting out her trusty binoculars and to better observe her friend. Much to her aggravation, she was now reading over her shopping list- wait a minute… was she talking to somepony? Pinkie looked closer, and saw her moving her lips and occasionally looking at something to her left before freezing up and putting away her list.

Who could she have been talking to? She saw the red unicorn quickly make her way out of the marketplace and immediately gave chase. Unfortunately, the unicorn had a sizeable lead and there were no shortcuts nearby, so Pinkie barreled ahead at full speed. Where did she- AHA! She caught a glimpse of her friend’s black and grey tail vanish into an alleyway up ahead. “I’ve got you now!” She skidded to a halt at what she knew was a straight, narrow alley, and saw nothing. No garbage cans, no boxes, and, most importantly, no Arcanica.

“OH COME ON!” She stomped her hooves angrily at having lost her quarry before charging down the alley. She couldn’t have gotten far, so Pinkie just had to look a little… Although, her internal compass/radar felt like she had passed her yet she wasn’t anywhere close to her. Maybe she should get her noggin looked at?

---

So, evidently using the Shadow Walking spell to evade Pinkie Pie only served to make things worse. She honestly worried about whether Pinkie Pie was even going to work, but figured that based on the points where she would randomly disappear, she was somehow balancing work and stalking. Unfortunately, it was starting to make her remember when her fans would stalk her, so she began Shadow Walking a lot more to stay away from Pinkie Pie.

In a way, she supposed the easy thing would be to simply approach Pinkie, but something told her that would lead to having to divulge the truth of the Necroscriptus (not her name for the Book that had started all of this) as well as the truth of her books. But sweet Celestia, telling her would work wonders on her nerves. Especially since it was starting to affect where she was popping out whenever she left the Plane of Shadows. What should be fairly straightforward exits were instead dropping her out of ceilings and walls, and one time out of an empty trash can.

According to the Heralds she questioned on it, it came down to the effect her nerves had on her concentration. While she would normally enter and exit as if going through a door or curtain, her anxiety was essentially causing her to open large holes for exits and she could come out of any part of said holes. Not to mention her nerves were getting the attention of the various nightmare creatures that called that Plane their home.

“Arcanica!” She flinched at hearing her name getting called. Pinkie was charging her, her mane and tail looking frizzy rather than poofy, and she looked extremely focused and slightly annoyed. So, naturally, Arcanica did what came natural to her in this situation: she ran.

“Shadows, shadows, I just need a patch of shadows… aha!” There, just ahead of her, was a construction site. There was enough of the upper floors in place that she had enough to work with, and enough of the walls that she could vanish without being seen as she dove in.

“Wait!” came another yell. She pushed herself just a little bit harder before getting into the site. Juking, she jumped to the right and dove into the shadows on the ground, only to loop and fly out of the shadow on the wall.

“SHIT!” She slammed into one of the wooden supports and groaned in pain. A creaking came from overhead, but she was more concerned with getting back to her hooves before-

“Finally! I caught you!” Her eyes bolted open at the triumphant declaration. Pinkie stalked closer to her, making sure each step was deliberate and measured. Her expression was hardened and filled with annoyance. “I’ve been chasing you for days, trying to figure out how you’ve been getting around everywhere, and now you’re going to- hey are you alright?”

She abandoned her serious façade and came close to help her friend back up. “What happened?”

“I messed up getting away from you. That’s what.” She grunted at the sharp pain in her back. Probably nothing broken, but she’d most likely be sore after that impact. “Look, let’s just get out of here and-”

“Wait! Twitcha-twitchy-twitch!” Her tail started frantically twitching and trembling. With a loud groan, a part of the site fell near them as the whole building shuddered.

“I must have hit a load-bearing support,” muttered Arcaninca. “Pinkie, we need to get out of here!”

“Right!” The two began moving towards the entrance when a large girder slammed down in front of them. “Okay, maybe we just go a different-” She stopped talking when her tail began twitching again. “Move!” She grabbed Arcanica and rolled the two of them to the side just as a chunk of flooring collapsed where they had been. “Oh no, the whole place is crumbling! Not even my Pinkie Sense can get us out!” The unicorn looked around and realized they were accidentally caged in… and directly on top of a shadow.

“Pinkie, I’m going to do something crazy.” The mare looked ready to complain but Arcanica stopped her before standing. “I need you to trust me. I’m going to get us out of here. Now hold on to me!” Nodding fearfully, the pink mare clung desperately to the red unicorn. Taking a deep breath, her body came to life as the power of the Void flooded her body.

“Arcanica! TWITCHY TWITCH!”

She pierced the shadow underneath them with her magic and felt the whole world start to rotate on its axis. “HOLD ON TIGHT!” The sounds of the collapsing building quickly faded out as she felt herself tumble from the rapid rotation. She groaned, feeling her back get cracked back into place. “Pinkie? You alright?”

“Wowie zowie! This place is super duper spectacularly spooky!” She was staring in absolute fascination of the Plane of Shadows, the world being completely darkened yet completely visible. What should be the streets of Ponyville formed an ersatz mangle of sharp corners and twisted ribbons that looped around, and through various misshapen buildings. Arcanica had to admit that while it was certainly breathtaking the first couple times, it got tiresome once you realized the resident god was the reason everything was so bizarre. “What is this place?”

“Not a place,” she told her friend. “A Plane of existence, and one of many in this world. This particular one is called the Plane of Shadows. It’s how I’ve been getting around everywhere.”

“Oooh. So this is how you’ve been escaping me and hey why is your right eye covered in a weird black mist?”

{HERALD.} The two mares clutched their heads as the shadowed ground rose up above them into the form of a titanic alicorn made entirely of shadows with large dragon wings and a dragon tail. Its unearthly yellow eyes burned with fury as it lowered its head to glare at her. {Do you dare to break your oath to us to not follow the path of your predecessors?!}

“No wait, Lord Shivkiral! This isn’t like that!” she quickly screamed. “I only brought Pinkie Pie here to save her life! I’m not leaving her here!”

{Really?} It extended its right wing, revealing Pinkie was already standing there introducing herself. {Then why is she speaking to us as if we were her friend?}

The Herald nervously chuckled before glaring at her friend. “Pinkie get down here! Lord Shivkiral is not something you want to do that to!”

“Aw, fine.” She slid down the god’s body before skipping over from where his tail met the ground. “So, his name is Shivkiral, huh?”

“Lord is a title of respect, not rank. Shivkiral has no actual gender given its body is made of darkness,” she quickly explained. “It’s also the god of this entire Plane, and is a little annoyed I brought somepony here.”

{We are displeased that you brought another mortal here so soon after giving your word that you would not follow the hoofsteps of the previous Heralds.}

“My apologies, once more, Shivkiral. I’ll just be taking Pinkie Pie with me and bring her home.” She nervously began pushing Pinkie away from the still glaring god. “I will always bring anypony out with me if I brought them here.”

{Do not test us, Herald. We take the breaking of oaths quite seriously.}

As the titan dissolved into hundreds of monsters which fled into the shadowed skies, the two mares began to walk through the mangled paths. “So, what exactly is going on here?” Pinkie stared in confusion as they followed a path that was completely perpendicular to the surface they had entered on.

“I’ll explain everything once we get home. Just know that I promised to never leave anypony in here and we can’t dawdle on our way out.” She leaped upwards, allowing the shifting gravity of the realm to pull her from the ribbon of terrain they had been walking on and onto the ground over them. Pinkie quickly followed suit. “There’s too many horrifying creatures in here, and Shivkiral’s presence should have vanished from here by now.”

“But how do you know where we are? My internal compass is completely bonkers here.” A haunting screech echoed in the distance, sounding like some manner of owl combined with a wolf’s howl.

Of course she has an internal compass. “It comes with the spell,” she said simply. She stopped in front of a sharp drop off that led down a massive pit. “Well, according to my eye, the exit near Sugar Cube Corner is currently down there.”

“But how do we get all the way down there without going splat?” Pinkie was leaning over the ledge in a rather carefree manner while looking one poke away from plummeting.

“Like this.” Grabbing Pinkie with her forelegs, she threw the two of them off the ledge and towards the flat surface below. The pink pony screamed in terror and choked Arcanica in fear, but the unicorn pointed her horn at the ground ahead of them. A crackling purple bolt of energy shot forward and the surface turned pitch black as the two were about to impact it. Rather than hitting the ground, the two melted through the black surface and tumbled through a wall of cloth before entering a brightly lit room.

Pinkie kept screaming before realizing where they were. “Wait, this is… my room?!” She looked where they came from and saw they had launched themselves out of her wardrobe. “How did we…”

“The Plane of Shadows has exit points wherever there’s a shadow. It’s where the foal’s tale of monsters under the bed came from. A couple of Heralds used to use the shadows under beds to get out in a pinch.” She got to her hooves and shook herself out before seeing Pinkie staring at her with questions in her eyes. “Alright, I suppose I did promise to explain. Fire away, I suppose.”

---

“So, let me see if I got this all down.” Pinkie Pie took a deep breath before beginning to speak. “All of the things you’ve been writing about in your books actually happened at some point and the reason you know this is because you’re the next in line to inherit the powers of these weird gods from another dimension. These same gods, however, chose you to continue their legacy so that you can prevent anypony from accidentally dragging them here and instead help maintain a solid connection between us and the Void?”

Arcanica nodded as she chewed a cupcake Pinkie had retrieved from one of her “Emergency Discussion” stashes. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

The pink pony nodded solemnly as she thought it over with one hoof under her chin. She suddenly perked up and shot one of her usual goofy smiles at Arcanica. “You know, that explains so much, now that I think about it all.”

It had taken her about an hour to explain everything to Pinkie Pie, and the Party Pony had been remarkably patient in listening to her explain everything. “Yeah, I suppose it does. But you can’t tell anypony about this.”

“But why not?” she asked with her head tilted to the side. “I’m certain Twilight would have a field day studying all this stuff.”

“Because if Twilight did study all this, she might go insane.” She dragged a hoof down her face. “She’s not a Herald, so if she learns too much or the wrong things, she could be driven insane and then I’d get blamed for it by Princess Celestia. And I don’t even want to consider what she would do to me for that.”

“But, why hide something like this from your friends? Aren’t you always going on about trust?”

“She certainly has you there, Arcanica.” The two mares jumped at the sudden third figure. That shock quickly gave into annoyance for Arcanica as she realized who was visiting.

“What do you want, Rune Cluster?” She then paused and realized Pinkie was staring at the former unicorn. “Wait, can Pinkie Pie see you?”

“Indeed, she can.” Using one of her claws, Rune Cluster picked up one of the cupcakes before taking a large bite out of it with her inexplicably fanged beak. “She was exposed to one of Them in all of Their glory and retained what sanity she already possesses. I would say that warrants the privilege of communing with us.”

“Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie!” She extended a hoof to the chimeric unicorn with her usual smile on her face. “Your name is Rune Cluster? That’s a very nice name, and it’s super nice to meet you!”

The former Herald chuckled before shaking the mare’s hoof. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Pie.” She sent a teasing glare to the suspicious unicorn. “You know, Arcanica, you never told me your friends were so amicable to meeting Eldritch horrors.”

“I specifically wanted to avoid telling my friends I was a Herald, thank you very much.”

“So, Rune Cluster, what are you doing here? Not that I mind since I made a new friend, but I was talking with Arcanica about her being a Herald, and then suddenly ‘poof’ you’re here and how did you even get here? Also what kind of cake do you- mmphmpmph.” Arcanica cut off her friend’s rambling by shoving a cupcake in her mouth.

“Well, I suppose I came here to help prove Arcanica’s claims of her powers and also introduce myself, lest the others decide to appear before me.”

She swallowed before gasping. “Wait, there are actually more Heralds? Can I meet them all?”

“No.” She frowned when both unicorns answered her.

“No offense, Pinkie, but the Heralds and Necroscriptus have existed since well before Princess Celestia or Luna. Heck, they predate the founding of Equestria itself!” Arcanica looked over at the smirking Rune Cluster. “Rune Cluster is from almost 1000 years ago. Heck, it’s partially her fault Discord even took over Equestria a thousand years ago.”

“I resent that sentiment,” snapped the mentioned unicorn. “I didn’t bring him here. The Herald before me did. I just didn’t do anything to stop him once I came around.”

“My point still stands.”

“So, what are they all like then?” she asked. “If I can’t meet ‘em, I wanna at least be ready to meet them!”

“They’re all insane and unpredictable,” muttered Arcanica.

“Each of us is our own being,” clarified Rune Cluster. “Some of us like to visit the current Heralds, others like to keep to ourselves and simply exist within the Void.” She tossed her braided mane back with pride. “I happen to be one of the former, preferring to visit and occasionally guide the next Herald into learning their heritage.”

“Didn’t you spend about 5 years tormenting Cloudburst 800 years ago?”

She laughed. “Of course I did, but that was to get her to actually read the book in an effort to rid herself of what she thought was some manner of demon that was following her about.”

As the two Heralds argued, Pinkie watched them and came to a conclusion. She wouldn’t swear a Pinkie Promise, since Twilight might have to know about all of this someday, but she was going to at least keep this a secret. Arcanica saved her life with the magic she learned from all this, and the creature she was currently arguing with didn’t seem that bad. So maybe, just maybe, the stuff she was wrapped in wasn’t as bad as it looked on the surface.

Author's Note:

Fun fact: The scene where Pinkie is brought into the Plane of Shadows was originally mapped out where they were falling to their doom on a cart, but then I realized Pinkie wouldn't deliberately put them in a life-or-death situation.

Comments

[Booster Spice]

I always thought the Elder Gods would know Pinkie. She who could reach out, change the words in the book, and erase them from existance.

But, this isnt That story.

Still, Pinkie now can have fun trying to get back through her wardrobe.

Poor Snow Queen.