Ersatz
There was no way to claim an emergency at the palace, something where she absolutely had to leave immediately and could somepony please show her where the tunnel entrance was? In a world without phones, where the most advanced form of non-verbal long-distance communication seemed to be the postal system... somepony would have had to come and tell her personally. Faking a received smartphone call, hanging up at the moment she could be seen -- it just wasn't an option and even if she'd gone so far as to pretend that the pegasus courier had just left, Fancypants could readily consult with the Princesses. It was the sort of lie which was destined to be shattered into fragments, and every shard would inflict her honor with a bleeding wound. Barring the sort of world-class emergency which no one should have ever been selfish enough to wish for, the party was about to begin, and she would have to attend. Cerea no longer had any realistic ways out.
Regardless, she was in the middle of reviewing escape plans when the stallion returned and to her distress, found that the majority would have required going through him.
"Asking if you're ready," the noble quietly said, "would be a rather foolish question. So instead -- do you feel that you can face this?" A warm gaze carefully focused upon her: the eye which had to work with the monocle had a slight squint. "Because I will understand if you want to stop, Cerea. Especially given my own failure when it came to returning on a date which would allow me to directly provide you with a longer briefing."
...no realistic ways out...
"You arranged everything," emerged as something automatic. "So much of the effort was thine. I woulds't not wish to reflect poorly upon thee through errant behavior, which would mean rendering mine own location into that of the Guard-errant --"
His ears twisted a little. Rotated, lifted themselves fully, then lowered again. And that was all.
I'm not funny.
"Breathe, Lady Cerea," he gently advised her. "Slowly. There is fear awaiting you below -- but there is also a significant portion of stage fright trying to shift her nerves from hoof to hoof upon my carpet. Let it pass."
"'twil offend," was her next protest. "So many of thine guests shall feel their time was wasted --"
"-- it's somewhat like asking the Bearers to attend a party," the noble bemusedly shrugged. "There's no guarantees that they'll be able to do so. And like the Bearers, if the claim is something happening at the palace -- something low-key, as to not stress those in attendance -- the absence can be excused as being for the good of the nation." With a slight twinkle in both eyes, with one spark shimmering through glass, "Although Princess Celestia has suggested the lack of their personal appearances is better for the survival of the party. Excuses can be made, Lady Cerea -- simply not forever. For my part, I feel that this event is necessary -- but necessity does not absolutely dictate tonight."
I can --
Both upper shoulders squared.
-- I can't.
He went to so much trouble. He's hurt, and he's still going through with this anyway. If I make an excuse, then he could lose status. I can't...
"We should head down," Cerea quietly said. Before I change my mind. "But... thank you."
He nodded, turned his body. Started to lead the way.
Cerea imagined that this portion of the estate would have been an oddly comfortable section, at least for anyone who wasn't in her situation. The hues were warm ones, any apparent antiques appeared to have gained that status over several lifetimes of loving use, and --
-- it was the brightness of the colors which caught her attention, followed by the softness. The hallway wasn't all that wide, not when it came to accommodating a centaur, and so the plush toy tiger rubbed against her right front pastern.
"May I take your jacket?" her host inquired.
She nodded, carefully removed and folded it. A corona projection recovered the garment, and the skin of her palm briefly tingled as the energy brushed against it.
"And your scarf -- ?"
"-- no."
He blinked up at her. She winced.
"I'm... still warming up," Cerea lied.
"Ah," was all he allowed himself.
Another projection of corona opened a door on the right, and the jacket was placed inside what appeared to be a small reading room.
"To keep any of my staff from becoming too curious," he told her. "There's a cloakroom, and none of mine would ever riffle through saddlebags, but -- I imagine at least one would want to examine the stitching pattern." The door closed again. "If you'd like a moment to review some portion of the guest list? I won't be able to stay at your side for the entire evening, and that will make it difficult to subtly brief you --"
"-- only if there's somepony crucial," Cerea managed. "Who just got in at the last minute." She had to make herself remember, and any delay caused on the front end would probably be echoed moment for moment on the back one. Although now that she thought about it, there was something the noble had to do --
"It's as much about categories of attendee as specific parties," Fancypants admitted. "And 'someone', for the full group. We do have a number of ambassadors, along with a few businesspeople and those who simply represent their neighborhoods within the capital. I can provide sorting criteria before we enter."
Sparring partners and spies.
"But if you do find yourself in distress," the noble thoughtfully considered, "we should have a signal." His gaze shifted, back and up. "Do you know how to snap your fingers?"
Cerea shook her head.
"Pity. The sound carries well, and it isn't quite like anything else. Perhaps a certain stomp of the hooves --"
"-- that's a restroom up ahead," Cerea softly broke in.
He blinked.
"Your memorization of the layout is admirable. If you wish to use it --"
"-- you should change the bandages."
She didn't think the smell was strong enough to be registered by ponies -- not on the conscious level. But her presence was going to put the gathering on something more than mere edge, and adding any degree of bloodscent...
The stallion stopped moving. Sighed.
"...yes," Fancypants considered. "A moment..."
It was closer to five minutes.
There were a few last topics of discussion before he brought her in, and her careful study of the estate's layout told her that she was being brought in via the long way around. Just in case.
They worked out a portion of her introduction: she was certain about none of it, and also wasn't sure how to override him. A hoof stomp signal was arranged. But there were other topics...
"How are they planning to prevent everypony from -- being set off?" seemed to be the maximum awkward politeness Cerea could bring to the inquiry. (The timidity, however, was more or less built in.) "When they see me --"
It made him sigh again. "How to fight instinct," the noble wearily said. "A question which has chased ponies down across the centuries, targeting those who refuse to acknowledge that the race exists. It's something new tonight, Lady Cerea. A sort of perfume blend, which was offered to all who entered. Because there is a scent-based component to the spreading of a herd reaction, and the researchers say the droplet will help keep such production to a minimum for a single evening." With a deeper exhale, "Of course, a number of guests refused it."
Which means some of them are going to break --
"Some claimed it would clash with their own chosen scent, and did so without ever taking a single sniff," Fancypants continued. "Others did not want to be part of anything which could be seen as experimental." With mixed exasperation and bemusement, "A few said the palace was looking for a way to control their minds, which seems to be rather a lot to ask of perfume. But I feel a number are simply terrified to be in a position where no matter what happened, they would have to admit they were truly thinking for themselves."
"And if those people --"
He saved her from having to say it, and did so casually. "So what we have are shield deployment devices, similar to those used in the Gifted School -- only somewhat weaker, as they do not have to block off explosions. It also allows them to be set off multiple times, and they have been coupled to kinetic detectors. Anypony moving over a certain speed will find domes briefly flashing into existence: not over them, but at their sides. Creating a corridor, which leads to the patio. They can recover there. I can safely state that the combination is working, because I tested them myself before allowing the first guest to enter."
Cerea took a slow breath. (The scarf held. The bra held. Her confidence sank.) Wondered just how many were about to break, along with the number who would do so as a fully personal and rational decision. Committing to the act in the hopes that others would follow.
A little more softly, "How's Discord? Is he... any better?"
Both immediately and evenly, "Did Miss Tiara request that you ask?"
There was no point in lying. "Yes." Twice now. "But I understand what classified information means, sir. I won't tell her anything which the palace doesn't want to reach the public. I just..."
He stopped Tirek.
A knight dies for something...
"...wanted to know."
He silently nodded, dropped his pace somewhat. The mustache drooped.
"It can be difficult to gauge true improvement," the stallion admitted. "Each chaos pearl discharged into his form creates some stability within the storm -- and I am fully aware of the irony in having to judge the condition of chaos incarnate by how stable his form might become. But that is all we have to go by, Lady Cerea. The degree to which he loses the aspect of the storm, and comes closer to the body we knew. Attempting to assume that form was..." A deep, slow breath. "...his last deliberate act. It might be reasonable to say that what we channel may be going into completing it. And in terms of granting him enough power to recover -- each pearl holds only a small amount, and there are only so many in all the world. It's not a question of full restoration." A little more quietly, "Princess Celestia told me that she's seen him -- push too far. There are certain signs which indicate when he's approaching his limits: things which have a few commonalities with his current condition. A loss of cohesion. But he had always recovered. It means there has to be a threshold. The point where his energies can rebuild of their own accord. If we can just push him across that line..."
Or it's like keeping a patient on full life support. As long as he's being constantly looked after, he'll survive. Turn away for so much as a minute...
But she didn't say it.
There was an aural tide washing towards them from up ahead. The babble of nervous conversation and, for Cerea, it was added to the scent of terror.
"It wasn't quite the full gathering when I left to fetch you," Fancypants admitted. "It likely still isn't. Some are caught at work, at least one is probably trying to figure out a path through the protests, a few turned back upon seeing that gathering -- and based on past evidence, I believe a number feel that lateness is the seventh pony virtue. So I can't bring you in last, not without significant stalling, and... for some of the final arrivals, herd instinct would never be an issue. So..."
He stopped for the last time. Looked at her...
...there was something strange about the way he did that. He was on the tall side for a stallion, especially a unicorn. It was something else which made him distinctive. But he was still so much shorter than Cerea, something which was true for everypony but one, and... when he looked up at her, it was in a way which suggested the gaze only had to travel across a few centimeters. As if they were very nearly the same height.
"...this is about having them meet you," the noble quietly went on. "Not as a concept or something half-hidden in the palace basement: as a person. Putting them in a place where, in the ideal, they would have to acknowledge an individual. But some will stick to their own definitions in the face of all evidence. We simply have to arrange for them to be outnumbered. And others..." With a thin, wry smile. "Acceptance takes many forms, Lady Cerea. You're aware that we have the cinema, yes?"
She nodded. Tried to keep her ears from rotating too far forward, straining to pick up on specific words within the fearful susurrus of the gathering.
"There are those who claim that Canterlot takes advantage," Fancypants noted. "We're famed for it, and not always unjustly. The most typical definition of a monster is something which cannot truly care. But for a few of those in that room..."
The smile was an exceptionally thin one.
"There are two producers present," he told her. "Each of whom wishes to formally acquire the license to use your likeness in their own rather tasteless horror film and, because they are from the cinema, they are both fully prepared to underbid the other. I encourage you to reject everything, while signing nothing. But do let them talk for a time. Provide them with the illusion of hope, that their offer might have been accepted if only it had been higher. Or sane. Because to some, the only real monsters are those things which cannot be exploited."
Only four broke when she entered. Just four, out of what she later learned had been nearly a hundred, and... she tried to tell herself that it was a good sign. If nothing else, the droplets had provided some beneficial effect, for a mere three to gallop towards the patio, while a dozen shield hues flashed in and out of existence and the one airborne pegasus frantically tried to work out some way of steering through the abrupt corridors...
Perhaps it said something, to have that as her new standard. That a mere four sacrificed their sanity in the name of getting away from her, and it could be seen as an improvement.
Doors opened. The sounds of anger blasted in from the outside. Doors closed.
She wasn't quite sure how to feel about Fancypants' introduction, especially as she didn't understand about three-quarters of it. Cerea had studied all manners of titles, a hundred means of formal address, and the noble's chosen means of describing her still set the wires to hissing. It left her standing motionless on his right throughout the whole thing, trying to work out whatever she could without so much as an ear twitch -- especially because she was convinced that any abrupt movement had the chance to set off another exodus. And one of the few terms which did fully register made her blush -- something which just made her look for the next pony to break, because now the monster could change colors and perhaps red was the hue which drained magic at a distance.
'First Daughter.'
In the roughest sense, Cerea did understand the term: the Americans had been in a position to use it now and again. 'Princess' had a different application in this world, and what she saw as the original definition couldn't be applied: her mother never would have accepted the designation of 'queen'. So, even without any election involved... First Daughter. The eldest female offspring of a nation's leader. But an identical translation implied a nation: something the palace had been trying to avoid. It was also a title which indicated nothing about Cerea other than the luck of birth order, with all achievement legitimately placed upon the parent --
legitimate
-- First Daughter.
First and... only.
The centaur herd's population had to be carefully managed, so as not to overwhelm the limited resources of the gap. If you were capable of breeding, then there was an obligation to do so -- but at the same time, the number of children in each generation was strictly limited. And in order to make certain that the best traits were passed on, the right to the largest families was often granted to the strongest. Her mother, as the herd's leader, had been entitled to four.
But Cerea had been a lone foal. Something the herd might have questioned, but... not to her mother's face, especially not after those extra birthing rights had been distributed as gifts.
legitimate
'First Daughter'. The words mostly made her feel like something which wasn't quite real.
Most of the crowd was staring at her. A significant minority had been caught in checking their paths to the exits.
What had the space been, before Fancypants had refitted it? Perhaps another ballroom: the area was certainly large enough. The palace had more floor space, a higher ceiling, and a seeming monopoly on marble -- but the newest chandelier was equally rich, and if the goal was a place to dance, then this part of the estate could accommodate. It just hadn't been allowed to remain in a matching base state.
The results put her in mind of a gigantic sitting room. An upscaled version of something which might have been found at the Reform Club: the launch point for a gentleman's adventure, one last place of comfort before Mr. Fogg dashed out the door to begin a madman's journey --
-- she pictured most of the attendees engaging in such an evacuation, wondered if eighty days of this world's fastest non-teleport travel would allow a complete circumference, along with whether any of the desperate would realize they were only making their way back towards her --
-- the image still held up. Furniture and tall floor lamps had been bundled into careful assemblies on the warm floor, creating multiple alcoves within the larger space. There wasn't one food serving area: there were at least seven, and drifting scents suggested that two had been designated for omnivores. A dozen servants moved between the zones, keeping everything refreshed. The only thing which appeared as a non-duplicated unit was the band, currently located in the far right corner: eight assorted sapients, set in a location where their music could try to drown out some of the exterior chants. The composition was a steady, soft one: something she felt was meant to calm, and therefore an attempt which couldn't possibly work.
(Cerea briefly spotted the local equivalent to the harp: something which was rather hard to miss, because the musician was standing in the center of a stringed cage. Griffons apparently liked to pluck the strings with their talons. And claws. And beak. Some notes required using all three at the same time.)
The actual seating arrangements could best be described as 'assorted'. She'd learned that ponies preferred to use padded benches -- but based on what she saw within the meeting space, at least one species wanted giant throw pillows, arranged into something very much like a floor nest. Anything with a rising back was probably meant for a biped. One yak was resting on a rock. (A rock with a pair of draperies tossed over the sides and a carefully-carved hollow for the fanned tail, but still a rock.) Three truly giant benches in the pony style had been carefully placed into widely-separated areas, and both of her guesses eventually held up there: that they were meant for her, and had been repurposed. Most of their existence had been spent in waiting for a Princess to visit.
The size of a furniture cluster was a variable. Some areas (including one with a centaur-designated bench) were meant to host gatherings of no more than four, although it would have been hard to prevent people from listening at the edges. Others could accommodate two dozen. A few small, shadowed areas around the perimeter had likely been intended as private recovery zones for those who didn't feel they could reach the patio. Cerea wasn't sure if any of them were large enough for her.
All of the area's lighting felt warm, but there was a faint tan cast to the illumination: something which brought the hue of Cerea's skin just a little closer to that of her fur. The ambiance had a natural softness to it. And the air reeked of fear.
...at least, she assumed it was all fear.
She could scent the terror emanating from the ponies. A number had chosen their masks: hard stances, tense muscles, determined stares -- but none of it changed what rose from their skin. (It was possible to pick up on the perfume: scattered tides of chemicals mixed into a peace lily base. There was also a lot of paper, and a stink of fresh ink: quite a few of the attendees had copies of the one-sheet.) But the elaborate, we-all-got-dressed-up-for-this clothing was covering yaks, donkeys, zebras, one furniture cluster was hosting six additional griffons, something out of her sight range smelled bovine, Yapper was somewhere in the visible area... and in several of those cases, she still hadn't been through enough exposure to those species to truly know what their fear smelled like.
A cross-section of the capital was within that room: given how low Canterlot's non-pony population was supposed to be, an exceptionally mixed one. Fancypants had tried to make all of them comfortable, in just about every way -- except one, and it was something she had to be told about, long after the disaster. There were no cloud alcoves within the room's upper atmosphere, and a complete lack of vapor furniture floating above the main gathering. It was something which was done at many parties, and Fancypants had felt it just allowed the pegasi and griffons to segregate themselves from the masses. And from her.
He talked about her for a minute, and she tried not to wince. As far as Cerea was concerned, there were no true deeds to speak of. She had been the one to hit the statue: the most she had done was save others from herself --
-- but then he spoke about the Guards, and how the capital only knew of them. A constant presence -- but one which was almost perpetually relegated to the background. Those who stood ready to sacrifice themselves without thought, so that all could live.
The city knew about Guards. But only of them. It had never truly been introduced to those who could make that choice. And so, from this night forward, a new tradition. To greet those who had taken on the duty. Celebrating them in life, and hoping that the next gathering would be for their retirement. The alternative was... something which he knew none wished to think about for long. But the city certainly owed each recruit class a greeting. That, and perhaps somewhat more.
The noble managed a smile. Something which came across with a certain dignity, and also just a little embarrassment.
"It just so happens that this was a graduating class of one..."
Someone laughed.
Then it spread. At least a half-dozen different kinds of throats and with the disc in operation, so much of the mirth sounded the same.
Laughing while in Cerea's presence. Some part of that could have been the tension: stress could make the strangest things seem funny. But -- laughing.
He finished by declaring that the evening was officially under way, then casually moved a few meters away from Cerea. Checking on a server, one whose tray was carefully balanced across the earth pony's back. It left her standing within the arc of the entrance, opened double-doors trailing out behind her like a reversed starting gate. She knew how to run backwards. She had a clear shot at -- something, and so many of them were staring at her. Just -- staring, with those huge eyes. It added something to the force of it. The fearful mass evaluation of the monster in their midst.
More than a few seemed to be focused on the sword. The weapon, that which struck at something so close to their core. She'd brought a weapon and it had been on orders, but the sword was with her and that just gave them something else to fear. It felt as if they were all staring, everyone from every species, and Fancypants had been the only one who'd moved --
-- a donkey near the front shook his shaggy head. Casually shrugged to himself, and Cerea thought about what Nightwatch had told her: an entire species where just about every member could find the worst-case scenario in anything, and this one was right in front of him.
Another head shake, a little quicker this time. And then his right foreleg shifted. Moved forward, nearly pulled back to vanish under his garment's long grey fringes, arced again --
-- he was trotting. Unsteadily, but with good speed. Coming towards her...
(She almost backed up, and told herself it was because she was trying to retain the proper sight line.)
The introduction was quick. His name was (or translated to) Subtle Toxin, and he was a chemist. He recognized that there were probably things she wasn't permitted to speak about, but he'd seen pictures of the sword, and... something about the look of it, even in the newspapers, had seemed odd. What was the material composition?
She was so startled to be addressed at all as to almost temporarily misplace the concept of 'classified', even though she wasn't sure the answer fit. But there was a one-word answer, something half-stammered in shock, and all it did was make the wires hiss.
It was a sound which made a number of attendees pull back. But the donkey simply looked puzzled. He tried to ask for clarification, and that just made the wires hiss again. And Cerea did her best to explain, but she was a blacksmith. Her knowledge of advanced chemistry was largely restricted to the ways in which it interacted with metal, and some of that had been classified.
All she could ultimately do was weakly suggest that it had something to do with oil, she wasn't even sure how that worked, and then a tradespony wandered closer because there was a new material under discussion. Were there any other uses for it? Ones less... dangerous?
She tried to think of a few safer applications. Sporting equipment -- no, that was just going to make them think about centaur sports, and too many of those focused on personal combat. How about... dice?
...oh. Centaurs had dice games? (And now there was another pony on the approach, along with two zebras.)
Well -- sort of. When that kind of game was played (at least among mares, and she spent a good part of the night in deliberately not talking about her herd's stallions), the natural favor was given to strategy. Dice usually added too much randomness to the mix. But it was possible to combine the factors, and that meant there were a few backgammon sets around -- oh. Right. Of course that didn't translate. Did anyone have some paper -- something other than the one-sheet...
-- it took her less than a second to decide that every photo had been the worst possible choice, followed by nearly ten of the horrible intervals before she could fully wrench her gaze away --
-- oh, thank you. Paper and a quill. At any rate, she didn't play that sort of game at home.
(There were a hundred little games in the herd. Some were physical, others mental, and every last one possessed a requirement she'd never been able to meet: that of having somepony to play with.)
But as an exchange student, living with the others in the household -- no, she was the only centaur --
-- it's... probably best if they just focus on one subject...
(A yak had just pushed her way in.)
...anyway, there were a lot of little clashes. Some of which weren't so small. Conflicts of personality. Culture.
Desires.
And they had to find ways of resolving them. Contests where no one had any real advantage going in -- those helped. And since Papi usually had the console tied up... right. Console. The wires were never going to stop hissing on 'console'. Um -- so this is the gameboard, and here's how the dice factor in. Oh, and the doubling cube. You need one of those. Now by comparison, for strategy games, when it came to the nation which had hosted her as a student, you wanted shogi -- and naturally that hadn't translated either... all right, it was going to be easier to sketch if she just lowered herself to the floor and used this table, there were more sapients coming up and she had to lean so awkwardly for both view and leverage on the sketch, but none of them seemed to know that -- all right, this is shogi. But when it comes to a dice game in that country, you're looking at sugoroku...
Their fear was based in so many things, and nearly all of them had originated with Tirek. A monster dedicated to a single purpose: the theft of everything vital, taking it for his own. Forever and always, until the end of the world.
They were afraid of her. Part of that was how she looked. Because of the way she could attack. But there were at least ten sapients around her. She couldn't read every scent or expression -- but the tones indicated at least a modicum of curiosity. Something which felt as if it was increasing.
During that portion of her training which had been done with non-pony species... she'd perceived the truth behind why so many had been willing to participate. Sparring partners and spies. And it brought her back to the one human in Japan who had claimed to be filming a documentary about the household. A way in which thousands of humans could come to know her and the others, as long as every possible method of familiarity involved the removal of their clothing.
Could you learn about another, through examining them in nudity? At the very least, you could probably figure out where all of the joints were -- although in her case, probably not how some of them bent. But when it came to learning who they were as a person... a blush would indicate embarrassment, tensed muscles could be seen as a desire to lash out at the one capturing the image, and anything beyond that would require some familiarity with posture and gestures alike. Something which meant the viewer already had to know a little, or -- allow themselves to see.
The designers of her dress had emphasized her legs, and the whole of Cerea's tail was on prominent display. A view of the familiar, potentially meant to distract from everything which wasn't. The (covered) display of cleavage? Confrontation therapy, or a point of reference for any disinterested minotaurs in the area. But there was only so much anyone could learn through vision alone, and most of that would be projection of their own beliefs onto her form. The majority might simply be reinforcing what they'd already decided.
If you wanted to know someone...
Sparring... you could pick up on certain aspects of a personality that way. (Or, with one hated memory of a dark-haired filly, the void where a personality should have been.) It was often a way to determine how they sorted priorities, along with recognizing a certain base level of honor. Pragmatism could come in rather quickly. But in the end, it was 'Show us how you fight.' It provided hints on how to beat her. The means of taking down a monster. And it built upon the ways in which their fear demanded they perceive her: as something which existed to hurt.
That was all Tirek had been to them. A mobile, ever-increasing source of pain. Not even something that would truly fight, because there were ways in which a fight implied a chance. His mere presence had been something which threatened to defeat the world. His central tactic had been existing and in doing so, demanding that everything else stop. Not a force of nature, but a backlash against it. The natural order sundered, and... perhaps he'd had a reason for that. An excuse provided from the core of a void, which did nothing more than echo about the hollow until the toughening from repeated impacts against the edges rendered them impervious to reason.
He might have provided his excuse, if any had asked. Or he might have laughed.
How did you come to know someone?
Show us how you look.
Let us see the way you fight...
...she needed more paper. Actually -- how about wood chips? Something more solid, which she could attach the paper onto.
(And now it was easily a dozen. Watching. Listening.)
Because it's never just the board, it's the game pieces. Now, if she explained the rules vocally and someone else wrote them down, they would be in a form which everyone could review at need. It would have to be a paper board at the start, but that provided the form in case anyone wanted to carve one out later. So... start with backgammon, because that was the dice game where the rules were the least complicated. After that, they could move on to Go: a game so simple that it could be learned in five minutes. Mastery apparently required about sixty lifetimes, but given that anyone at the party had the option for the first head start...
'What do you look like?'
'How do you fight?'
Both were questions which could have been asked of Tirek. But perhaps he never would have found a way to give an answer to a third inquiry, because it was a thought which might not arise in the mind of a true monster. Not if the base concept had to include anyone else.
The girl, with the lower part of the long body flush against the floor and the upper torso half-hunched over a too-low table, sketched and talked, almost becoming lost within both acts. The nature of the audience was almost immaterial.
(Three ponies, deciding that the gameboard had to be close to completion, tried to get in line -- only to find that the yak had already claimed the front of it. The yak wasn't moving. It was cold at home during the winter, and this would be something new to do. Besides, if the game had a board, then the board could be flipped over. That alone opened up all sorts of possibilities. And there were now two griffons coming closer, because any new game was a fresh way to dominate.)
There was a third question: something which a monster might not have been able to answer.
'How do you play?'
And all around her, for those who had been willing to risk approach, to listen... the scent of terror was slowly beginning to fade.
So much about the party would feel as if it had almost worked...
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True. Having the Bearers involved is certain to make any party 'interesting' which is not the objective of this. Informative and boring is. Nice, quiet, uneventful cucumber sandwiches and polite conversation before a... Oh, heck.
(As long as she doesn't bring in the game Diplomacy. Open warfare would break out in hours.)
It’s kinda ironic, the ones claiming the perfume was an attempt to control their minds. It /was/ designed to suppress their biology and in effect alter their thinking. By making them able to keep thinking.
The party so far is so darn hopeful! It won’t stay that way… too many bad actors… but for the moment she’s winning and it’s great to see.
Board games?
I really hope Fancy sets up licensing terms, and Celestia makes a Guard donation percentage or equivalent, that Cerea doesnt find out about for a long while.
Even if Cera couldtell about Consoles, would even Griffons be able yo understand that on this 200 meter on a side image they are hovering over, to take all of it in, the induvidual componants are the size of pinpricks, and the physical componant can be encircled by her finger and thumb. And there are millions of these made.
she would have trouble even if she recognised the declared specifications on the console display, that if it shows 50 images a second, the console has to reactand create the image each and everytime, etc?
GO should keep them going for a while.
She hasnt seen Gygax Comicshop yet, and his Dice Of Gods, O&O games?
this line made me laugh hard
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Isn't trying to licence Go is basically licencing tic-tac-toe? Or how would you licence Go-fish? You can sell game pieces but it's impossible to sell rules.
I’m actually astonished at how well this is going for Cerea. She’s actually talking to people who are genuinely curious and seemingly becoming unafraid. Hopefully the shit doesn’t hit the fan until at least after the party ends. Our girl needs this win haha. Excellent work!
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The license is for the specific art, constructionand arrangement of a given boxed product, not the foals drawing in the sand played with pebbles.
Thats art.
Watch out for Flanksy.
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If she knew arcade cabinets exist, that might put her a little closer to being able to explain things.
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I kinda doubt Equestria has the required law institutes. Me thinks our copy right issues are very human in nature. GamesWorkshop for example decided to go bonkers about it.
this heavy-handed "foreshadowing" is a bit annoying...
Ah. Show them that you have considerations beyond destruction or even mere survival. Show imagination. Show creativity. Show how you combine both to interact with others in ways that are unnecessary except for shared enjoyment. Show them you can and will form bonds with others, because that is the path away from monstrousness.
This chapter reminds me a bit of the minor Mass Effect 2 scene where one of the characters notes that their enemies have lost the capacity for art (among other things), and so are no longer a society, but truly just engines for destruction.
The historical exchange of games across different irl cultures is a really interesting subject. Here's an overview of board game history by a reasonably funny Englishman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gov-qrjvOTc
Oh, for
I've been there, I guess. Sometimes the thing you learn from playing a game with someone you thought you hated is that, yes, they really are scum. I played a game of Takenoko with this one coworker I couldn't stand because he asked to be dealt into an ongoing game and he would have been impossible to work with if we'd told him to go away. He made every aspect of the game worse, from the ongoing conversation to the tactical landscape of the board, and he killed a fly using one of the game cards.
Watch the griffons start a war because they can't beat Cerea at shogi.
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Wait till they learn about Uno
Me Yesterday: "There's no way Estee can keep naming chapters after negative descriptors, we're already past 50 chapters!"
Today's Chapter: Ersatz
It's good to see some brave souls approach Cerea and give her a chance. It's really too bad that it all goes to shit (or so we're led to think). Thank you for the update Estee!
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At least we haven't reached "a**hole" and "f**ked" yet.
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Here's a fun exercise you can do at home:
With a pen and paper and no other resource, take ten minutes and write down every negative descriptor you can think of. (It seems that nouns are on the table too, so leave no stone unturned!) I think you'll surprise yourself.
Bonus "recovery" round, five to ten minutes jotting down positive descriptors.
Was expecting that looming disaster this chapter but you’ve decided to build the suspense higher yet. Your marvelous charactization is on display all through here; every sentence draws us into this intricate world. One surprise: Fancypants knows about finger snapping, but Cera can’t do it. She’s got the same sort of hands I do, but minotaurs and diamond dogs are slightly different, right?
I feel this is important, yet I don't recognize it at all ... does anyone else happen to remember what this is referencing and maybe where I could find it to refresh my memory?
I know Cerea has already caught more than a few breaks (with Night, Emmery, Yapper, Fancy Pants and others, with being allowed into the guard, and so on) ... but damn I wish Cerea could catch a break!
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GW is a school bully compared with Disney. Being possesive over a singular piece of fiction doesn't even measure against stealing and patenting every damn fairy tale and legend the company could get its grubby hands on, forever and ever.
Curiousity is a survival mechanism, just like fear.Lack of curiousity equals to missed opportunity. If ponies could overcome fear to trade for their curiousity, they never evolved into sapient social species.
Now in case of humans, multiple instances of curiousity stimulation, theatre and zoos, books, tv, games - made us comparably fearless, borderline suicidal in some cases
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Don't show that to ponies, ignorance is a bliss sometimes
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Hopefully not to derail too much but I will break silence for a moment.
They did, I'm told, try to copyright "goblin" at one point; and very definitely did "space marine," because there was legal stink about it (which they lost). And the uncerimonious tossing-out of thirty-odd years of naming continuity in Age of Sigma was specifically so they COULD copyright stuff... Not to mention there is a REASON why GW never has an official presence at any UK wargames conventions* - and hasn't for decades - that they don't run themselves; because they were kicked out because they kept trying to take them over/run them. (Bear in mind that pretty much every UK wargames show is organised at a local level, not some organising body, too.)
Sure, by the horrendously awful standards of larger corporations like EA, Amazon, Disney et al, GW has not historically been "as bad" (though I haven't spoken to anyone who works there for porbably a decade, to my knowledge they have not been accused of systemic abuse unlike, say, picking a name entirely at nonrandom, Ubisoft or Activision); but crossing that low bar is not an achievement. They were being the "playground bully" as you put it, while many of the now-henious computer-games-industry companies were still reputable and even liked. As a company, they've been absolutely awful in many ways for a good thirty years; even just having a quick google to see if I could find confirmation of stuff mentioned I discovered new crap they'd be trying to pull as recently as
2019correction, a month ago**. They've been the modern EA of the rest of the wargames community since before EA was the modern EA.(And let's not forget that the IP they so are so defensive of IS, at the end of the day, dervivative in origin itself - my copy of first edition Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (circa 1990s) even has that on model accidentally labelled as "hobbit" instead of "halfing" to prove it, and the precursor to the bloodthirster ("balruhk") in that book is shown in a picture which is CLEARLY the balrog attack at Moria...)
*I'm not even sure they show up at Salute, the biggest one. They MIGHT do that one because it's so big, though.
**Apparently now you can have fan sites (or youtube videos or streams) and such only as long as you don't actually show anything and never say anything other than praise.
True courage is not the absence of fear. It is acting in spite of that fear. By that metric, Cerea may have never been as brave as she was when refusing Fancypants's offered excuse.
A skill born of practice.
I imagine many of the early lessons for the griffin-harp involve learning how to get in it without damaging anything.
And that's how I learned that Magic has a backgammon reference.
But yeah, games can an incredible uniter. The question, then, is how this all goes wrong...
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I can't really snap my fingers either. She probably just never learned.
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I think that's the one who groped her during a sparring session when she was a filly.
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yak loses and rage quits and it spirals down to full riot from there
"stitching pattern. ""
"stitching pattern.""?
"they are both fully prepared to underbid the other"
"they are both fully prepared to outbid the other"?
If not that or something like it, I'm afraid I'm not fully parsing this sentence -- though I think I've been able to pick up enough of the meaning from the rest of the paragraph to be getting on with.
"stress could make the strangest things could seem funny"
"stress could make the strangest things seem funny"?
"Because the way she could attack"
"Because of the way she could attack"?
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IIRC in an earlier chapter we get a flashback where Cerea was assaulted during a sparring match. There's more to it than that, but more than that and you're probably better off finding that particular chapter.
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Very much so, plus it doesn't help that some writers stay a little too close to the show.
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Underbid is deliberate. Implying the movie makers are so scummy that they're going to offer as low as possible, and then go lower.
Bro this story is so fucking miserable it’s literally torture to read I get you have a fetish but can you cool your jets and actually have something good happen at some fucking point Jesus fucking Christ
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Miserable? Torture?
Ha! Read Brave New World. That's torture.
10959724
But if they're underbidding each other, wouldn't that mean that they're each trying to give it to their rival?
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They both like the idea of using her in a horror movie. They'd both hate for their competitor to get an advantage over them. But neither actually want to win and have to work with her.
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...Huh. I guess that would make sense, but I'm still not sure I get that from the text. Thank you, though.
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It's an Estee stylistic trademark, but I agree that it's irritating. It violates "show not tell" and it takes the reader out of the moment. But I expect we'll have to take it or leave it as that's just how Estee writes.
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Personally I find the issue is not so much whether good or bad things happen as whether the protagonist is relatable or sympathetic. And Cerea is challenging because she has serious mental health issues, and that makes her rather hard to put up with for an extended period of time.
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Well, all she really needs is for the party to be remembered as being good more than it was bad, by enough people. As long as she isn't blamed for it going wrong, she wins (kinda)!
If cthulu tried to show us 5th dimensional billiards or something, I'd wanna play.
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And if you won, you'd be allowed to keep your sanity. Whatever was left, anyway... :D
That's... wow. A griffon harpist must be an amazing sight.