Rejetée
Her first instinct was to fling the sketchbook away, listen to the impact as the eyeless face was dashed against stone. That frantic desire surged through her, pushed at muscles and joints, tried to operate her body with the hydraulic pressure of revulsion. But she fought it, clawing back against a flood of instinct with desperate rationality. The sketchbook was most of what she had for placing any necessary drawings. If Tartarus could force her to begin shedding her supplies, then it would eventually try for the hairpins, for the sword, and without those --
-- there were no eyes: a consistency. The exact means by which they had been excised varied by the second. She was looking at the pencil lines which indicated hollows set deep into the skull: something which began as cold and dry, followed by dripping graphite and ink. The tangled remnants of the optic nerve could be found plastered against the side of a fresh black wound, but only for a moment before it was all just skin, a bare expense of blank skin stretching across a skull which had never seen any need for eye sockets at all.
Nothing about that absence could show emotion. Only agony, so much of that was hers and it left the girl looking at the shifting curves which delineated the mouth. Curves which were moving.
There were whispers in the caves and in time, some of what they carried would be understood. But in that moment, as she just barely held onto the sketchbook, muscles almost spasming as she clutched at the repository of grotesquerie, the only local sounds were produced by her frantic breaths and near-skittering hooves, with the irregular splashes and strange air currents relegated to the background. And within that instant, she knew that to keep looking at the void would override thought. She would toss away the sketchbook, with sanity following close behind.
But she hadn't seen his face in months. It was his face, and she'd once told herself that it was the features of the one she loved. There was something in her which didn't want to look away, couldn't stand to see the void, the void which was her fault because the girl had believed she'd loved him and within the bounds of a sketch, the least possible rendition of everything he'd meant to her, she couldn't even bring back his eyes.
It left her trying to read the grey lips, something at which she'd never had any true skill. The girl had needed to become at least roughly familiar with multiple languages, and it was hard enough to keep everything sorted out in her ears. Picking out words in a foreign tongue on sight alone...
But some terms were more common than others.
`never'
'never wanted'
'deformed'
'ugly'
It was easy to find those words on a human's lips, in multiple varieties of Babel's outflow. And when it came to the face which was almost all the way off the page now, mouth framing the same syllables over and over as the teeth prepared to snap -- there was one set of motions which she'd spent months waiting to see.
That which would come when he truly knew her.
When he saw past every illusion she'd desperately brought to bear.
There were no eyes: something which limited the face's expressions. All that could be read within their absence was pain and agony and hate.
The mouth did its best to clarify.
'Monsutā'
'Monsutā`
'Monsutā'
There had always been so much in his eyes, always. Weariness and frequent frustration. A desperate need to understand had often been followed by acceptance. And where there was acceptance, when he had been holding her hand, the hand upon which she was balancing abomination...
...he had accepted her, in some ways. She had --
-- she'd pushed herself onto him, in the first minutes after making her decision. Because she hadn't thought much of him at the start -- well, why should she have? He didn't even have the sense to get out of the way when he heard hooves closing in, and when it came to the chase of the purse-snatcher, with him on her back (without full invitation!) and yes, he'd never ridden anything before, he didn't know how to keep his balance, he was going to grab at something for support and all things considered, it probably should have been her shoulders...
She hadn't thought much of him. Fast-rising surges of outright loathing didn't require much in the way of thought. The plan had been to catch the thief, do -- something -- the laws forbid her from striking out against any human, even one who was trying to hurt her, but she had been certain that a knight would have improvised -- and then trot away from the male she'd run across (and into) on the street. After finding a covering for her newly-bare upper torso, because she had also been embarrassed, humiliated, and she didn't want to ever have that happen again.
And then he'd taken an impact for her. Something he'd had no reason to believe wouldn't have been fatal. A split-second decision, made with no thought at all. He'd thrown himself in the way on instinct...
...and in return, she'd thrown herself at him.
Had her behavior been somewhat forward? Only if that description of her actions was buried under a massive cloak of hotly-blushing understatement. She'd practically offered him access to -- everything, everything about her during those first moments in his home, because he had shown the potential for nobility. Self-sacrifice had been proven, and pointing a phone at her to get a video for later upload just hadn't happened at all. It had felt as if he'd accepted something about her, and --
-- she couldn't remember what that felt like.
To have someone accept anything about her.
(She'd failed in that confrontation against the thief, as she always failed. And he seemed to have accepted her anyway.)
To hope she would stay.
And she'd felt as if she had to work quickly, before he changed his mind. Before he had the chance to find out just how poor her skills and abilities and everything about her truly was, for a girl who always came in second. So... he'd been grasping at her breasts, during that wild chase. Maybe he liked doing that: some of Japan's lesser forms of media suggested it was a popular pursuit, although such perverted groping mostly seemed to take place on trains, was more often directed at buttocks and in both cases, her anatomy was several size categories above what the local culture deemed acceptable --
-- it had still meant he'd touched some part of her. Maybe if she pushed herself at him -- no, might as well just grab his wrist and invite him to feel her heartbeat through bustline and distant rumor -- allowed him to start by exploring what was most familiar, he might reach... everything else.
And perhaps he wouldn't have been repelled.
Wouldn't have turned her out.
Turned away.
There had been an initial moment of something very much like acceptance.
She'd told herself it was love.
Because she couldn't truly remember what receiving either one was like.
And she would have done anything, anything not to lose that feeling again --
-- and the head was beginning to fully separate from the paper, she didn't know what would happen once it did and she had to do something, she had to get rid of the book but it was part of her supplies and it was Papi and Lala, it was the house and Miia's long tail weaving through just about all of it, she'd drawn Suu and Mero and she hadn't been able to think of any way to show Nightwatch what Rachnera looked like without startling the pegasus, it was all of her life in Japan within thin lines and slight shadows and it was the only thing she truly had of her home --
-- one hand was just barely clutching the sketchbook. The other bent back at the wrist, traveled along angles which she'd never allowed those lost eyes to see, desperately clutched at the secured place for thin plastic, almost broke it under frantic pressure --
'Monsutā'
-- stabbed outwards, towards where the eyes should have been.
She looked away, just before the moment of impact, and she knew that she shouldn't have done so. You didn't take your gaze off the enemy.
(Somewhere behind her, a cave cleared its throat.)
But she didn't want to see.
There was a soft fizzling sound, followed by a sudden roiling of the air around her hand. And when she forced herself to look, a three-quarters profile image was still upon the page. Motionless and silent.
The glowstick's half-liquid light was more natural around her fingertips. Still yellow-green and somewhat sickly, but -- it was light. Not something which existed in a state where it nearly had mass, splashing across a page. Instead, it shone on the memory of a human face and, in those places where the paper had been worn thin by multiple erasures, nearly shone through.
Cerea slowly, carefully closed the book. And then her head turned to the side, with one arm moving to follow: trying to illuminate what she was searching for. The spot where a desperately-flung book would have been likely to hit.
It was easy to find. The field of thin blades which sprouted from that section of wall existed in their own hollow. Frozen ripples of outwards-curving stone showed where the cave had peeled back to expose them, and -- possibly where the wave would have crashed in again, as soon as she was no longer trying to desperately wrench half-shredded remnants away. Impaled, and then entombed.
That was when she considered screaming.
Most of that was simply a delayed reaction: there had been no time for such a base, shameful response, and now there was. A little of the rest was morbid curiosity blended into a darkly scientific bent, for she was sure that Tartarus would relish in the sound of a centaur's scream. Not just permit it to pass through every cavern, but helpfully boost it along while negating every hint of distorting echo, until it found its way through the thinnest crack of the sealed exit. Reached those waiting beyond, and made ponies shiver.
Instead, the girl softly said "...merde," and immediately decided that the mere word had given the deep place too much.
The back of her armored hand wiped at her forehead. Sweat fell away. It was too hot just then, and remained so until it became too chill. But there was always a moment in between those states, lasting until she noticed it. Until she began to long for --
She... still had to make a map...
It was hard to use the hairpin for leverage: the sketchbook was not a thin one, and there was a chance that any excess pressure would see the plastic break. (The fragments might retain some ability to battle against magic -- might. It wasn't as if anypony had tested that.) Instead, she tried to keep it between two tightly-pressed fingers, so that the tip just barely touched the paper. And then she flipped the book open in a single motion, aiming for the middle --
-- the glowstick half-dripped radiance upon plain paper. Another kind of void, one which could be just as frightening as that which had chased her across the road between worlds. The threat and fear of uncommitted potential.
She temporarily fastened the hairpin to the book's edge. Brought out something she could sketch with. Measured the departure angle of the branch passage with darting gaze and sharp breaths.
Carefully, feeling as if every movement was both far too slow and exactly the wrong one, the girl began to sketch.
There was a sound off in the distance, coming from somewhere along the path she'd taken, and she... couldn't quite pin down how far back the source was. Just that it sounded strangely like hooves. Ones which belonged to someone who was larger. Stronger.
She looked for the source, when the sound became too loud or quick. At one point, she risked backtracking by a few hoofsteps, and saw nothing. But the sound was still there. Hooves, but... not really trotting forward, or walking, or doing anything more than... tapping. A rhythm which steadily accelerated into the beat of impatience for as long as she sketched.
After a while, she stopped. Closed the sketchbook, put her supplies away, and took the branch passage. The echo kept the pace.
Behind her, the caves breathed.
She'd been given a route to follow, one which passed three monsters. Told to stay out of sight as much as possible, keep herself within shadows. But centaurs had a hard time with stealth, and the light had launched its own battle against her. The glowsticks flared at odd moments, intensified their output and made her wonder if the half-resistant chemical reaction was being accelerated. This was followed by the question of what would happen when that illumination went out --
-- or perhaps it wouldn't.
She couldn't even tell herself that it represented a wish. In some ways, it was more of an extrapolation. To have a glowstick go out completely would potentially be to describe it as having died. Tartarus might not allow that to happen. Leave just enough of a glow to find the outlines of the glass, try to see by that, shaking the contents over and over as if the movement could wring one more lumen out of the mix, and the briefest of flares would make her long for more --
-- the glowsticks flared at odd moments. The light of the branch, which almost seemed to come from the fetid air -- that was somewhat more active. It crawled across the armor, tested the paste and searched for spots which hadn't been dulled enough. When that failed, it settled for surrounding her: something which wasn't so much a halo as calling card. Something approaches: all incarcerated parties should pay attention. Decide what you're going to do about it.
That strange radiance surrounded her -- but she quickly noticed that it wasn't really able to touch the sword. If she thought of the deep place as a twisting whirlpool sinking into reality's ocean, then the sword represented a mobile patch of stilled currents. Something which traveled along the fatal spirals, where the roiling of the air never quite reached it, where any glow which came within centimeters of the blade either died away or, for that which came from the glowsticks, simply became light again. And the radiance had equal trouble in surrounding her head and tail.
(The girl briefly wondered just how deeply her features were shadowed.)
There was no issue in drawing the blade and waving it about. A blade without an edge was good for little more than slicing through glow and vapor: on Menajeria, this was almost good enough. The unnatural light fell away from the air, and the atmosphere perceptibly lost pressure -- for that portion which touched her hand. Wherever the sword was, things were normal -- in a very small radius. And when she moved it somewhere else, Tartarus closed in again.
The light traveled with her. The echo of heavier hoofsteps followed, and she kept trying to tell herself that it was just an echo. She had to twist her upper torso to get safely past a precisely-placed group of serrated stalactites --
-- more sounds of keratin on stone. She'd been telling herself that was an echo.
Chitin scuttled across the shadows of the stone ceiling.
It was a familiar sound. So was the sheer scale of it: a scrape and a scamper, and both were followed by a soft, dark giggle. Something which told the centaur that she'd only heard it because the arachne wanted her to, the trap was already set and every movement she could make would be the wrong one --
-- her hand was already close to the sword's hilt. She gripped, began to pull, saw that the light was glistening in long thin lines, as if caught by the moisture of freshly-extruded strands --
-- they broke, as the sword touched them. Fell apart in ways which webbing never could.
Eight legs skittered away. And the air whispered.
'mi... al mi...'
Another, more distant giggle. Somewhere up ahead, there was the sound of something wet dropping onto stone.
Then it repeated. Twice.
And then the low moan of a leviathan's near-endless agony shook the cavern. Came up through the armor, created vibrations within the metal which ignored the padding and drove themselves into the girl's bones.
It was pain as resonance cascade. You couldn't be alive and not shiver in time with the frequency. Not if you understood what pain was at all.
(She was wrong. You had to understand pain, to shake with another's torment. But it was also about how you thought of it...)
The noise filled the world, and parts of the stone joyously danced to the beat. It became impossible to hear almost anything else.
Almost anything. For when she moved towards what she had been told would be the next of her landmarks, the echoes of hooves followed.
Three monsters. If Tartarus had not twisted so much as to completely change her course, then she was only supposed to encounter three. This was the first, and the second was close by -- but then, it felt as if much of the world would be close by. When the cell was this large, most of the planet potentially had proximity.
It had a cavern to itself: a domed hollow which, like that which it contained, never should have existed. She knew that she had not descended so deeply within the earth, that the amount of space required for this prison should have created more than the basalt mound in the saner world above.
Even under the twisting light of glowsticks and air, the incarcerated monster was mostly black. The exceptions were generally puce and where neither of those applied, that was where the concept of color tried to suicide.
It had its back to her -- or at least, that was how it felt. She couldn't find anything which resembled the front of a head: it took her some time before she could force her gaze to any point which projected enough from the presumed torso to be a head at all. Locating the limbs was almost a lost cause, right up until the point where her mind reluctantly allowed the possibility of grossly thickened tentacles to qualify.
She almost hadn't spotted them as being tentacles at all. Such appendages were typically designed by nature to be as flexible as possible. The girl was almost certain that these specimens didn't have bones, but 'almost' was as far as she could get because tentacles also didn't have armor plating.
It almost looked like bark, except for all the ways in which it didn't. If she allowed for bark, then it was a tree which had seen massive fungal infections. The plating was cracked in ways which allowed the tentacles to move, mostly by grinding against each other along the edges. It also permitted the rot to drip out. Sometimes a maggot would emerge with the putrescence, and the wriggling wetness would fall onto stone. It would have a moment to exist there, still supping at its meal. And then the stone hooks would catch it.
The monster was surrounded by hundreds of maggots. All blindly writhing, unable to pick a direction between escape and feast. Very few of them had died. The exceptions had come from the ones who landed close enough to eat each other.
That which carried them, birthed them and so much worse... she didn't think it was facing her. At least, it didn't react. The handling clusters of tentacles twisted, the columns which served for legs almost could have kicked, and a creature nearly a hundred and eighty meters long keened in half-conscious agony, within a cavern like a hollowed mountain.
There was a glow in the air, because the deep place wanted her to see it. To see all of it, and become lost within its shadow.
Another maggot fell. The columns of twisted minerals which closed off the cell didn't vibrate. Such a small impact could never disturb such gigantic extrusions of stone, especially when the new arrival was only half the size of the girl.
It came down within a meter of another maggot. Writhed. Twisted, as fluids flowed from freshly-torn flesh. A thin cone stretched out from the narrowest end, just before two stiff projections darted forward and sunk into its neighbor. The feast of agony began anew.
She pulled back as she felt her stomach twist, everything she'd consumed trying to come back at once. Not merely nausea, but trying to create a shield: a closer stench of foulness and acids to block out that which the roiling air had just carried to her, circulating around her head in a fast-closing circle, it was like the scent bomb all over again and she was going to break --
-- she missed the disc. Missed its scent, the constant presence of familiar metals and stranger things. It would have been something to focus on. To breathe in. If she put on the helmet, if she shielded herself within another kind of cage --
-- the foulness came too close to her head, to the hairpins, and the current fell apart.
The scent was still there, for Tartarus had not produced it. But it was no longer coming at her with deliberate intent. It was possible to retreat. And the girl had trained herself to run backwards, but... she wasn't going to give Tartarus that clean a shot at opening a hole under a hoof. She forced herself to turn, started to trot away, made each leg to work in turn and that was taking so much concentration because four was just too many --
-- another sound of impact, and it made her look back. But she never saw anything hit, for the columns were wider than her body, with the gaps a mere meter or so across. She was parallel to a column, and all she saw was the stone. There were hooks growing there, and something very much like unliving thorns.
There were also symbols carved into the chert, each a meter high. Something about them felt blurry, and the girl had to squint before she could read them.
Gardul'ak
So she was on track, because the alicorns had told her the name of the first monster --
-- blue eyes blinked. Squinted again. The word eventually resolved in her vision, and she read it for the second time.
The deep place created its own translation effect, because it always wanted those within to know when someone was screaming. And, as a special side bonus, for travelers to see the names of those who were imprisoned. To think about what they had done to be kept here, and what might happen should they escape.
To see the names. To read the names.
She could read.
The word was somewhat blurry, and perhaps that was because of the hairpins. Some of the ones at the back of her head might have been interfering with any magic affecting her visual cortex.
She'd taken so many notes in French, was carrying all of them with her. There had apparently been an option to just bring a book --
-- the temperature was climbing again. It moved past chill, paused at comfort, and she longed -- but then it climbed again. She began to sweat, and rot rained down from Gardul'ak's vastness all the faster. The keening of the leviathan's pain grew louder, louder, her ears twisted and tried to retreat under her hair, she was trying not to back away, but it felt like every cell in her body was dancing to agony's music and her body was just trying to move.
There was moisture gathering on the tips of the stone thorns. It could have been condensing water. Perhaps every thorn was a barnacle. She couldn't touch it. And the keening began to reach new heights, paused as all of the monster swelled outwards, the leviathan seemingly trying to fill its cage as it fought for the air required to scream --
"-- it'll stop soon," said the new voice. "Just... wait."
She didn't move. There was very little point. The words had come from a distance, and from behind stone bars. Technically, there was nothing to flee from, and --
-- she'd been seen.
The second cell. About forty meters deeper in. On the other side of the cave corridor.
In some ways, it was already too late.
"Wait," the other prisoner gently told her, and it was a sweet sort of voice. There was a natural gentleness to it, something which hadn't changed from the volume it had needed to achieve in order to reach her. But there was also a certain amount of internal strain trying to erupt through each letter, and that was a sound the girl knew by heart. Her mother had taken her to visit the sick...
It was the voice of someone who existed close to the edge of death, trying to pretend everything was normal. Braving their way through the pain.
The living hill's keening arched further towards scream. The voice waited for the next break before speaking again.
"I do see you, centaur." There was a little amusement in it, and that quality only increased as it traveled across the next words. "And I could be offended, that you haven't answered me. Or tried to look at me, or any other form of acknowledgement." Thoughtfully, "But that's just the result of a wish, isn't it? A wish to be safe. I can't do much about that one, not when it comes to the totality of the situation. Not when I'm in here. But I can at least grant within the limits of my abilities. That I offer you no threat."
Keratin shifted. Most of that was ahead of her, and there was a little double-tap inherent to the sound. Split hooves.
"A centaur," the voice mused. "Another centaur. How quickly things change, these days." And then there was something very much like a chuckle. "Is it day? Would you know?"
She started to turn. To answer. It brought her eyes across another patch of too-bright yellow in the opposite wall --
-- there was a new sound in the corridor, and she just barely registered it. A repeated slapping: something solid onto something wet. Like bricks being placed into fresh mortar.
The voice was almost a little hurt now: something which nearly let all of the other pain go through. "Oh, centaur..." it sighed -- and then the bemusement took over. "Does it cost so much to be polite? Is it day, out there in the world? Are we under Sun?"
It was a voice. Not half-heard whispers or giggles or the screams of a monster --
-- she had to wait for that to pause --
-- but a voice. A real, living voice.
Perhaps that was why she answered.
"Moon was up when I entered," she carefully projected through the glowing air of the corridor, and the words were allowed to pass. "I'm... not sure what time it is now."
She had the watch. She could open the twin lids, look at the face --
"Moon," the voice wistfully said. "The scars are gone now, aren't they? That's what the last survey team was talking about, when they came through. No more scars."
Scars?
"I do wonder what that looks like," the voice added. "Things change, up above. They change down here, too. Faster than they have before. Perhaps faster than they should. Are you going to see Tirek, centaur? It's a fair guess, as you're here without a survey team. Only one for so long, one kept below, and now another comes. Seeking, as the one outside the bars."
It paused again.
"Not that we nearly all haven't been outside the bars, now and again," he told her. (She'd just realized the tones were male.) "For a little while. Not the deep place, never the deep place for me, but... the bars, yes. Because that's part of it. Come closer, centaur. You have to, yes? If only to pass by, if you're going off to see him. I --" and she felt as if she'd heard the wince and swallow, pain being pushed back "-- would like to see what you look like, from a little closer. Tartarus will allow that. I know."
"How do you know?" Which was said without looking at him. Not that the other major option for viewing served as an improvement.
They briefed me about you.
"Experience," the male sadly told her. "Long experience. Because there could be mist as you pass by, or darkness, and it'll prevent me from seeing you. And I'll always wonder. But how much worse to see, and have that memory to look back on? A moment of normal conversation, and the knowledge that it will never come again?"
He paused. The leviathan shook. Somewhere up ahead, the faint slapping sounds accelerated.
"The knowledge," the voice said. "I have that. More than enough to share. And yet, knowing never fully stops the worst of it -- at least for me. Your first time in the deep place, centaur? You wish to know about how it can hurt you. And I see armor, for what I can see of you at all. But the true protection is knowledge. Would the alicorn have briefed you on the truest essentials? I presume she still exists, out there in the world." With the lightest of laughs, "Since there is a world. And you did just mention Moon."
...he said he's been outside the bars.
If that's true, he could come through at any moment.
But I either have to pass him or backtrack through the Struga.
Her hand gripped the sword's hilt.
"If she told you about me," the male almost casually continued, "then there would have been a name. I haven't had the change to introduce myself by it in -- some time. May I have a pair of wishes, centaur? Just two little ones? When the first is a wish to see someone new? And in exchange for both -- knowledge? That which may protect you, as you seek the other in these dreary halls?"
It had almost been casual. There had been a plea embedded in the words. Desire and desperate hope.
The hooked maggots writhed. Scraps of wet flesh splashed onto stone.
The girl slowly turned. Checked her path in swirling light, moved down the corridor as she angled her body towards the opposing wall. Stopping every so often, as the leviathan's scream swelled, shook the world --
-- the wail peaked. Stopped. A pause, and then there was another scream. Something just about a decibel softer.
"Oh," the other prisoner breathed. "You're coming to see me, aren't you? You really are..." Wistfully, but with tones changed, slowed. As if he was speaking to someone very small. "And this is why we wish, little calves. Because the greatest love the world can grant... we only feel that when they come true..."
Tartarus is for monsters.
Monsters.
They told me about you. That you'll always want to talk. But I saw Gardul'ak, and it distracted me.
This is a monster --
The monster standing just behind much narrower bars had ears like cupped leaves rendered as jet intake scoops. Grey-brown fur ringed the fringes of comically-oversized hollows. The attachments were about as wide as stems.
There were two horns. They emerged from the peak of the forehead's slope, one well above each eye. Each came up for a few centimeters, twisted to the horizontal, cleared the ears, twisted again as if a child had wrapped gum around a finger, and went vertical. It was like looking at a diagram of airflow in a newborn dust devil drawn in brown keratin, with little pointed tips of white.
The hooves were naturally split at the front. Warm brown eyes were slightly recessed under the shadow of thick, protective lids. Features roughly like that of an antelope's found a pained, brave smile putting wrinkles into a grey coat, just above the triangular fall of the little beard.
But it wasn't an antelope.
Kudu.
She stopped, directly facing his cavern from two meters away.
The kudu's cell was about the size of a large living room, and -- that was nearly all she could see of it. Most of the light had clustered near the front, allowing her to view him and very little else. Just getting a full look at his form required shifting around somewhat: the gap between his bars was barely large enough for the kudu's snout to be pushed through. All she could really make out beyond him was what seemed to be a tangle of branches towards the back. Some kind of thicket, made from half-broken thorns.
The warm brown eyes widened.
"A lady," the kudu breathed. "Or so I presume, based on anatomy." A quick look at metal-covered curves, and then he tilted his head back, seeking her face. "You've been told what to call me, I think. But it's so much better to make introductions. I am Strepho, dear lady -- and you should feel no pressure to provide your own name."
He stopped. Muscles contorted, spasmed under his skin, and she watched him push the pain back down. On the other side of the corridor, the leviathan's twisting slowed.
"Especially as the alicorn probably told you to be careful about that," he eventually continued. "So I'll content myself with 'centaur' for now. One wish granted, my lady." The head tilted with bemusement, and she almost expected the heavy horns to bring him into the ground. "You're good at this! But can you prove yourself expert? I wish for one thing more, if you'll grant it. And I promise, the knowledge is worth the exchange."
Her mouth felt oddly dry.
"I can't let you out --" she immediately began.
"-- and I wouldn't ask," the kudu gently said. "It wouldn't be allowed, in any case. Not now, and never all the way." Sadly, "I wish to leave, I admit that. I always wish, even when I know it grants my prison strength. But I also know when they won't come true." He took a shallow breath. "The thing I want now... that will be permitted. Because it makes things worse, you see. So much worse. And I ask, even while knowing that. Especially because I know. And so Tartarus shall let it pass." A noble-seeming head tilted to the other side. "Haven't you noticed that there's only so much an alicorn will ever say? After a while, it starts to beg the question of what she's not telling you. Paths, warnings, general guidelines -- but not secrets, lady. Never secrets. I know the secret of how the deep place truly works, of the only way it ever could. How you can shield yourself from it, if you have the strength. And I'll tell you, and I would love to tell you freely -- but I must take a chance first. To ask for a dream."
"Which is?" Every letter was dust on her tongue.
His words, however, had almost turned liquid.
"You carry food. They all do, in case they have to bargain. Trust a kudu to know when food is about. " He arched his head forward, and the snout came close to a little glint of bright metal within the stone bars. "Food, real food, something which won't turn into blades and acid on the tongue. Give some of it over, freely and of your own will. Enough for a taste. Enough to remember --"
She'd been told that her food was mostly meant to be used as a distraction. That there were things in the deep place which would react to its presence --
"-- for that," the kudu softly finished, "is the torment. And the first part of your lesson on how to survive this place, my lady. Given freely, in the hope that you will do the same. You will, won't you? I wish for that..."
-- she didn't know kudu scents: this was the first one she'd seen. There was no way to connect the wisps of molecules coming off his fur to mood or honesty.
But the warm brown eyes were gentle. Pained. Desperate. And everything in her said that the kudu was telling the truth.
She didn't understand.
I don't understand much of anything.
I've been here for months. I'm trying to learn. But it feels like nopony told me anything real.
No one ever tells me anything real.
My mother...
...if it goes wrong, I draw the sword.
I can move faster than a kudu.
I have to.
The leviathan's moans were losing volume. It made the slapping sound easier to hear. Brick by brick, somewhere down the corridor. Just out of sight.
"A little," Cerea softly told him. "Enough for a taste."
The kudu simply nodded.
It took a little while to extract one of the packets. She carefully unwrapped the scentproof layers --
"Oh," the kudu just barely breathed. "Dried watermelon! A glorious night, if night is still present. A little water to moisten it, lady? Please?"
She tipped a few drops from the canteen. Placed the results on the floor, knelt just a little, and drew the sword.
The kudu, eyes fixed on every movement, watched her push the mass with the tip. Sliding something very much like congealed flesh through the bars.
His head quickly went down. Snagged the dried fruit just before the freshest of mineral spines hooked the beard, slowly chewed. The brown eyes closed, and every muscle trembled with unnoticed pain.
"Lady," was the first word after he'd swallowed. "The lady wish-granter." The forelegs briefly bent into a low bow. "That's how I'll remember you, and it will hurt me in ways which Tartarus can barely dream of. Two wishes granted, and now a promise kept. Gardul'ak -- its voice is softer now, is it not? The destroyer is about to become your teacher. Or -- an object lesson. Listen, lady. Just listen..."
He fell silent then. Left her straining for sound, and the effort provided her with half-heard whispers and the sounds of maggot flesh coming apart and a leviathan's agony, as the temperature peaked, sweat soaking into padding just before the plummet began again --
-- the cries of a monster's pain lessened.
Dimmed.
It was a rumble of discontent now.
And then, just for a second, the living hill... sighed.
She turned as much as she dared, and it just barely let her watch the kudu and the huge mass in the other cell at the same time. Something which would have been so much easier for a pony, but -- predator's eyes. They kept telling her --
-- the leviathan's armor plates seemed to be sinking. Receding, coming closer to hidden skin. Gaps closed. A tentacle began to go limp --
-- no: it wanted to do so. It nearly managed the feat twice, almost became a boneless crusted mass across what seemed to be oddly smooth stone. But it tensed each time, started to lift again --
-- stopped. The entire length collapsed, all at once. There was a moment of silence, and then the next tentacle began to descend --
-- she saw the first of the new gypsum spikes spear through the half-closed gap between plates, just before she scented the putrescence of fountaining blood.
Gardul'ak screamed. The hill shook within the mountain of its prison, and the kudu silently waited in perfect stillness until the maggots had ceased to rain.
"And there it is," he gently told her. "The secret."
The temperature fell. (The kudu didn't notice, because that was for her alone.) Paused, because it had paused every time. And then the plummet brought flesh to shivering as metal concealed a display of what could never be arousal, as horror mixed into confusion and drove the whole thing closer to the border of sanity.
"But it's a poor teacher who doesn't explain an answer," the kudu offered -- which was followed by the first touch of spite. "Or an alicorn. So I'll explain -- but perhaps a question will help you see it. Dear lady, granter of wishes -- what is the difference between torture and torment?"
"I..." It felt as if her words had died. Decayed into a clogging mass in her throat. Something else which could die in the deep place. "I -- I don't..."
"In torture," he gently said, "there is no thought of escape. No thought at all, really. There's a kudu saying about torture: the reason we won't use it. The only thing you can learn through torture -- is to discover what the tortured person thinks you want to hear. They'll say anything, to make it stop. It doesn't matter if it's true or not. They'll babble everything they've ever imagined. But the pain doesn't end, because none of it will ever be the right answer. Not when the goal is torture for its own sake. It can't stop, because --" thoughtfully, "--where's the fun in that? The agony just keeps building, and... there's only so much pain a mind can hold before it breaks."
The cold was the reason for her shivering. It was the cold...
Somewhere in the distance, the slapping paused. Thin liquid ran across a vertical surface, and the trickling worked its way into new whispers.
'ms r'
'mn se'
"And when the mind is gone," the kudu passively observed, "the most the body will do is twitch. Sometimes not even that, if there isn't enough left to understand pain. Torture for its own sake contains the seed of its own demise, because a tortured mind will always shatter. After that, the body gives out. Always. But torment... dear lady, you saw it for yourself. Torment pauses. Because in permitting pain to stop, for a second, for an hour -- that is where the true agony lies."
She barely felt her head move. She just knew that she was looking at the kudu, and only him. She couldn't stop...
"Have you ever seen someone in chronic pain?" he quietly asked her. "One for whom potions still work, but... only for a little while? Have you watched their face, as the effects begin? Because there's a moment when they feel almost normal again, as if nothing might be wrong, another second and all will be well, their life can go on because it won't wear off this time, it won't --"
His head dipped. The first tears welled up in brown eyes.
"-- but that wish doesn't come true, does it?" he sadly told her. "That's why I dedicated myself to the other wish, the better. Because in every cycle for the afflicted, there is a moment when you dream that the pain will end. When there's enough of you to dream. A pause, to collect your thoughts. To remember how thinking works. Of everything coming so close to normal, so close, and perhaps the moment will stretch out for longer this time. Maybe it won't end. And then it does. The time before agony returns -- it's a variable, lady: it has to be. But it's always enough time to dream, to wish. And that is where the truest pain comes from, that we can think, can wish, and are left in a state where it can happen again. Because the prerequisite of torment is hope."
She was barely aware of her hand having dropped to the sword's hilt, chill fingers numbly trying to find a grip. The kudu didn't seem to notice.
"Maybe things will be better," he told her. "Different. A pause to recover, to consider, to dream. To stretch towards the most precious fruit of hope. The poison, dear lady. To accept the pain, to merge with it, to recognize that every respite is nothing more than the grandest trick -- if you could simply abandon all hope when you entered here, then you would be proofed against Tartarus. Anyone would be."
He slowly shook his head. Twisted horns brushed against the stone bars.
'm sr'
'mn sre'
"But sapience creates fools," the kudu declared, and did so as Gardul'ak writhed again, with a flung maggot splattering against thickened columns. "I know the trick. All of the tricks. Sometimes there's a door. Or a gap between the columns, and the spikes don't spear you as you slip through. There have been doors, and some of them let you almost get to the exit. I know that's all it is, lady. And yet... you have to try, don't you? Every time. Every door."
The trickling stopped. She heard a metallic sort of click.
So did the kudu.
(She couldn't imagine that the cupped ears missed much.)
(She... wanted her imagination to stop.)
He turned, peacefully looked down the corridor.
"In fact," he passively observed, "there's one now."
And she looked.
There was a cave. A (un)natural corridor of stone within the earth. Rock and water and screams and pain. And about fifteen meters away, there was a wall.
It was white. The paint looked to be a fairly cheap coating, not so much covering plaster as trying to make it look better by comparison. The sort of thing you got in
a government building
and in the center of that corridor-spanning wall, there was a door.
Two doors, really. A hinge on each side of the frame, a gap in the middle. It was the push-bar style: you pressed on the long, wide center bar (set for human height), it disengaged the lock, and you went through to find --
judgment
we went through the door and
he shouldn't have known
he couldn't have
-- the whispers didn't become any louder, not just then. They simply drafted extra syllables from the leviathan's screams.
"That's your door," the kudu observed. "It has to be, don't you think? It was made for you. So you should go through it."
The wall was blocking the corridor. She could try to kick a hole into the barrier, but --
-- maybe it's just illusion, maybe if I hit it with the sword, it'll --
That felt possible.
It also felt like hope --
-- I could turn back. Try the Struga.
But where there's one wall, there could be another.
There could be dozens.
It wants to play.
-- she wasn't sure when she'd stepped away from the cell bars. For the most part, she was aware of the door getting closer. Or her body getting closer to the door. The exact difference seemed rather fine.
She could almost make out the whispers now. The chanting. It was easy, because so much of it just required her to fill in the gaps. Something she could do from memory.
Somewhere behind her, the kudu sighed.
"The memory of a meeting," he said. "The granting of a lesser wish, and... knowing we will never meet again. New sources of torment. I fail, dear lady. I know the trick, every trick -- and yet I fail. Because I understand wishes. True wishes." Which was followed by a sudden groan of pain -- one which was cut off by a rueful laugh. "Lesser wishes and hope. The strongest of poisons, aren't they? And that was why I set out from my homeland. To grant the greatest of wishes, for everyone in the world. In the name of making the pain stop. And I made a wonderful start of it!" With open regret, "I... just didn't get to finish."
It looked like a human door.
It smelled like plaster.
And on the other side, the no-longer-whisper of a lost world's anger pounded at the agony of memory.
'monstre'
'monstre'
'monstre'
But there were more words than that which she heard in French. There was the last thing she ever heard the incarcerated kudu say, just as her free hand reached out for the cold which radiated from the metal push-bar.
"Did you know," the kudu conversationally asked Cerea, as gentle brown eyes watched her through a mist of ancient sorrow, "that at some inevitable point within the torment which is existence... every last sapient being will truly wish to die?"
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Oooh, this can only go badly...
I can't help wonder what his crime was? He seems pretty decent for a villain.
i'm guessing that that means "monster".
So, have we met Virgil, the most virtuous of the damned, here in Hell?
11128323
Attempting Global Extinction, fulfilling that wish he says everyone will have, for everyone.
----
So... is this how Tartarus traps her? Well, she hasn't crossed the threshold yet... Not even touched the door...
In the grimdark setting of Tartarus there is only torment.
An angel of mercy is a type of serial killer who has decided that their victims would be better off if dead. They often work in medical and caretaking settings and can be horrifically prolific before capture.
And a being only deserves Tartarus if they've attempted to end the world...
don't go into the light, Cera!! don't go into the light!!!
"but it's so pretty"BZZZZCT
What are those small sounds she keep hearing? It's like someone is trying to reach her or trying to get her attention.
Tartarus is truly hell. You would only need Hades to complete the look.
The part with the sketchbook was really disturbing and hit the hardest. The amount of horror crammed into that section was sublime and now the sketchbook is damaged and her memories of Kurusu will always be tainted by what Tartarus tryed to hurt her with. Maybe Luna will be able to help show her that her memory about Kurusu aren't as bad as what that place showed her? *Sigh* She will never accept after what happened with the spying on her dreams... Poor girl will torture herself even more after this.
Yeah, her relationship with Kurusu didn't start in a conventional way and a lot of what she said was true, she pushed bit to get into the household and latched onto him desperately for love but at the same time, he was somewhat receptive to her advances. Given another environment than the household with the endless competition, I think those two could have connected, become friend and perhaps something more.
Problem was, they never had the chance, the environment was horrible because of the competition, the law was bullshit, the governmental agency that were supposed to make them real foreign exchange students did nothing and Cerea had to always fight her own insecurities in world too alien for her.
Monster Musume has a lot of psychological elements under the veneer of a joke harem manga...
Damn it, I wish she could talk to him for a chance at healing...
As for Strepho, I don't know why it surprised me, I expected no other speaking inmates besides Tirek, only giant monsters or abominations like Gardul'ak. It make sense there would be some sentient criminals down there, they can't all be horrible things birthed from chaos or lovecraftian horrors from the beginning of time... Perhaps I don't understand why most of those criminals down there weren't simply executed than subjected to Tartarus. Perhaps like Tirek there was a risk in killing Strepho?
And the bit about hope and chronic pains, was that inspired by the back pain your mother was suffering from? Tartarus a representation of sickness in general?
What a cheery place! Lovely neighbors! Shivering intensifies.
11128327
Romanization of the Japanese of the loanword 'monster', yes. モンスター
(similarly, we get the French later, monstre.)
11128323
Sounds like he tried to exterminate all life on the planet, because he believes existence is torment to everyone. Just periods of calm before the next period of horror, in which they'll wish for death.
So in his mind, he's not evil, or cruel. He doesn't wish harm on others. He's releasing people from torment, granting them the greatest wish.
Cerea need to get out of there like a bat outta hell.
GNU Meat Loaf
(I know it's not really the place but all that reading about Tartarus today made me think of the song.)
This feels almost like Cerea is travelling through Anor Londo.
...I can't imagine Tartarus would permit any illusion that makes you look normal, so she must be seeing what's really there, so far as the prisoners go, but...he's a middle-aged sounding buck.
What did a kudu do to nearly destroy the world?
Well, that was some exquisitely eerie shit. At first I thought Mr. Polite was going to be a Hannibal Lecter type. But he was just a pitiable creature who undoubtedly did something incomprehensibly monstrous and wound up in Tartarus for it. He did give some valuable insight into the place though. Excellent work!
11128323
Implications suggest he tried to kill everyone on Menajera and couldn't finish the job, to his regret. Very interesting character and interactions in this chapter. Absolutely fucked up and brilliantly described. Thanks Estee.
The moment when you pause and quietly laugh, upon realisation Tartarus could hold no power over you.
Huh. I never thought about it before, about how reading any updating story (tv/book series, movies that are part of a larger world, fanfictions that update chapter by chapter) is so much waiting, hoping for the next part. Joy and elation when it finally comes, a few hours of bliss while it is enjoyed. Then back to waiting. Torment. ......I still don't want to stop.
11128604
It could never touch something so edgy.
Entrancingly horrific, much like Tartarus itself. There's a horrendous creativity to the place. And the kudu may have the right of it; that creativity could well be proportional to the hope of the tormented. (And kudos for working in the iconic phrase. Maybe they should carve it into the gates.) And Cerea's tragedy is that even after she's long been convinced that she can't do anything right, she's never stopped hoping otherwise.
Going to file that one away...
Looking forward to more, even if I'm also dreading it. Whatever's behind Door Number 1, it won't be enjoyable for anyone involved. After all, that's the point.
11128329
Relatively speaking, perhaps. Wanting to kill every sapient thing on the planet out of warped mercy may qualify as virtue in this prison. Either way, he certainly won't be guiding our Dante any farther, and I doubt his neighbor would qualify for Limbo.
11128604
reminds me of this
that Cerea in a nutshell
11128452
Maybe he was the one that tried to drop a boulder on Celestia's head?
I always got a giggle from seeing that at 69 for so long.
Bill and Ted: "69 Dude!"
The Monk
“Come into my parlor, Ted. I have cookies!” -Reykan
There's no knight that has never wavered, as there's no true battle steel until it has been tested. The test of worth is not to never come closer to defeat, but to survive in the end. Survive and, if possible, do so victorious.
Hmm I was under the impression that Tartarus was reserved for those who a) were guilty of omnicidial situation b) and impossible to do render harmless otherwise. This guy doesn't seem to be immortal, so the apt thing would be just blast his head off and be done with. Punishment for punishment sake is ALWAYS a bad idea, given that a corpse it's difficult that will mess things up again, but they CAN escape from Tartarus.
I do think Strepho deserves some type of mercy, if not by the base fact that everyone does, then because of how he helps Cerea. If nothing else, he could use the same mercy he wanted to enact on the world itself. Not sure how that works, I doubt Tartarus has prisoner release forms. But if it's possible, that guy doesn't deserve *eternal* punishment.
Celestia says Tarturus is not sentient, or at least not “awake”. Not even she, with her vast knowledge, can really be sure of everything about the Deep Places though, especially this one. I hope she’s wrong, and I hope we get to pull back the curtain and meet the one behind all this smoke and mirrors. They’re certainly performing a service for the larger world above, they might even be well intentioned like Strepho.
Quite peculiar: this chapter kept crashing the tab when I tried to load it. I eventually had to open it in a different browser than the one I usually use for FIMFiction. None of the other chapters, or other pages on FIMFiction, I tried seemed to do that, but this chapter did it consistently.
Computers...
"Not if you understand what pain was at all."
"Not if you understood what pain was at all."?
"screaming. As, as a special side bonus"
"screaming. And, as a special side bonus"?
"It was like looking as a diagram of airflow in a newborn"
"It was like looking at a diagram of airflow in a newborn"?
"Sliding something very much like concealed flesh through the bars."
"Sliding something very much like congealed flesh through the bars."?
"because none of it will never be the"
"because none of it will ever be the"?
"for a second, for a hour"
"for a second, for an hour"?
Oof. Well, I wouldn't say this was a fun chapter to read... you paint the picture well. But good in quality, and with its own sort of enjoyment. Thank you for writing.
Tartarus has found Cereas torment.
Goverment office paperwork.
The only thing missing is the Vogons?
Kuzdu the Kudu?
The monsters are one thing, but I can't say I approve of putting a mortal creature in this Tartarus. With the monsters, it's probably the only way to contain them, but with a mortal it's more of an infinite torture for finite crimes thing. I'd rather they be executed instead.
Excellent chapter! At turns creepy, horrific, and foreboding, all wrapped around an examination of the nature of torment as explained by a personable mass murderer. Definitely a place where the show wouldn’t tread, and yet I totally bought into it regardless!
11128681
I mean, Celestia is The Sun Princess and the ibex barely let her in, why would some plain old kudu be welcomed?
He kept talking about wishes... Maybe he found the local type of genie, or tried to become one...
11128452
Well, before the Return there was one way to try and end the world that even a mortal could attempt: kill Celestia. Doesn't explain why he is in Tartarus rather than the Shadowlands, though. Unless he discovered some way of making himself immortal...
That Kudu is the very worst kind of scum...
He's an existentialist.
11129251
Going by the 'thicket' in the back of his cell, I'm betting whatever he's done did something Weird to his horns. A pile of them would probably look like a tangle of briars, right?
11129094
You say that monsters and mortals are mutually exclusive. A mortal can very easily be a monster, as a man named Ted can prove
11129547
Well, admittedly, given the story at hand I probably used the wrong word. By monster, I mean the creatures of incredible otherworldly power that we've mostly seen coming from Tartarus, as in Anchor Foal. Basically, if a creature can die, then putting it in a prison where it cannot die, and is tormented for the rest of its existence, is incredibly immoral.
My plan was to read this slowly, with the hope that I would catch up just as the last chapters were being published. Then I got Covid and had nothing better to do but read the most recent 200K words straight. Now I’m just hoping for another chapter comes out while I’m still convalescing. Waiting with somewhat more than bated breath.
11129210
Ah, I got the species mixed up. My bad.
Superb.
What an excellent villain, and what an excellent literary tool to exposit on Tartarus and the nature of suffering. Well done.
11128635
Oh, I was being completely serious, not Affably Evil. I have no hope left for anything anymore and especially not the future. The last couple of years has seen to that. Yes, I know you (i.e basically all the 7.9 billion aliens on the planet that surround me) all want me to shut up and go away, (I'd go away ENTIRELY, but I'm not yet at the point where I'm prepared to give either Reality or collective humanity that satisfaction). which is why, in the main, I have - and now will again.
11130613
If 7.9 billion people have a problem with you, then the problem probably is you.
Hmmm... I was thinking that Strepho might have been well-intentioned but made the critical mistake of assuming that individuals were wishing for their deaths at the same moment he did. I think that's wrong though, which comes from him making that distinction between torture and torment. He would bring people to that point himself and then "mercifully" release them.
Yes, at some point every person likely honestly wishes for death. The crime is in choosing for them when that moment should come.
That makes me wonder though... Is it possible to un-monstrous the monster? (The Elements of Harmony seem to point toward Yes) What happens then?
It's like the narrator got locked up in Tartarus.
Having recently finished Endwalker, this guy sounds very much like the End-singer. Though I am aware that the “everyone would be happier dead” thing isn’t that rare.
11133099
His name literslly may mean "one who no longer cares"...
I've been away from this for a while, so I had a brain fart and mixed up kudu and ibex. As I've been suspecting that the ibexes are a setup for someone else, I was rather expecting them to be in that cell.
Always good advice for entering a place of eternal torment. That's why Hell has it inscribed on the gate.
Regarding Strepho, does anyone else recall Mercy the pegasus from The White Horse? A bit of the same intent there, but I suspect without the army of loyal followers.
Oh, just spotted something else:
Is that 'change' meant be 'chance'?
Here’s a question that has largely been overlooked by the comments: Who and What is Gardul'ak? It sounds like it could have been lifted from D&D or some other high fantasy world, but my searches on the name come up empty.