Amorphous: The Tale of Arcadês the Immortal

by Quillian Inkheart

Tale 1: Harmony and Discord

"The ground eye of a Cyclops," Arcadês said to herself as she put the ingredient into her brew, "so as to see clearly." She looked over to her patients, a Unicorn and his two fillies. The little pony's coats were slightly greyed – muted from their normal hue – and their eyes looked empty and joyless. "Better make that two."

She added in another dosage, stirring the potion inside her cauldron with care. "That smells dreadful." The unicorn put a hoof around his fillies, pulling them back slightly. "You can't expect them to drink that foul brew, can you?"

Arcadês rolled her eyes, chewing on the inside of her mouth. Most of her ingredients were pure showmareship, but she kept the illusion of mysticism strong; ponies were more likely to believe that a potion made up of mystic ingredients would save them, rather than hearing names like Mugwort, Sandalwood, and Peppermint.

"They will take it, yes," she said simply, not pausing in her stirring.

"I have half a mind to call the guards on you, you filthy mud pony." The unicorn scowled, turning his nose from her cauldron as if the aroma was unbearable. "And I need to pay you to force this poison on my children?"

Arcadês stopped stirring. Wordlessly, she drew her spoon free, tapped it on the side of her cauldron, and immediately began putting it and her ingredients back into their respective places. With only the sounds of her hooves to break the silence, she began packing her saddlebags for a trip to town.

"Wait, what are you doing? Where are you going?" The unicorn stepped forward, eyes suddenly wild.

Arcadês continued packing her bags, not turning to face the unicorn. "This mud pony stands between your family and The Discording. Me and my potions are the only thing keeping you, your children, and your wife sane." She shut the saddlebag as roughly as she could, turning to stare balefully at the unicorn. "We are not three tribes, but one whole. We may be under the cloven hoof of a dictator, our heroes might be gone, and life might seem bleak, but we are all still ponies of Equestria. I will not stand here and be insulted when all I'm trying to do is help you. I have ingredients to buy and pick, if you've nothing better to do than spout your fury at me."

She shut the other bag slowly, knowing what would happen. She counted up in her mind, wondering how long it would be until the unicorn cracked.

"F-fine!" The unicorn shouted, just as Arcadês reached twenty-three. "W-what do you want me to say?" He looked down and to the side, obviously ashamed. "Will an apology be enough? Because I am truly sorry. This is all just so..." The pony trailed off, bowing his head down so his horn touched the dirt floor of Arcadês' hut. "Please, save my family... I beg you."

Arcadês donned a secret smile of relief before turning back, masking her expression behind a scowl. "It'll have to do." She opened and re-opened some of the various containers around her home, drawing out several more ingredients. She measured each with care, before applying her actual magical reagents. The potion coughed up a billowing green cloud and Arcadês stepped back, so as to not inhale the fumes. "Push them close to the cauldron. They don't need to drink; only breathe."

The unicorn paused in confusion, then did as he was told, sliding the two fillies into the miasma of green smoke. They coughed at first, but soon their breathing steadied. They stared forward as if in a daze, and for a moment, Arcadês wondered if she'd failed. Then, very slowly, color began to return to the coats of the two fillies. Their eyes grew more aware – perhaps a little frightened – before they started backing away from the cauldron.

"D-daddy?" One of the two fillies spun around, spotted her father, and rushed over, hugging him. The second, smaller filly followed suit moments later. "Daddy!"

Arcadês felt her heart swell, but she kept a grim expression on her face. She had a reputation to maintain. "Now... my payment?" The unicorn blubbered as he passed over the pouch of bits. She didn't stare or poke fun; he was a good father, despite his attitude.

But such was the way of life in Discorded Equestria; or, as the Mad-King called it Discordia. She stashed the bits in her saddlebags, then turned back to the unicorn. "You said your wife had a resurgence?" She asked simply, cutting right to the point. She opened a window, letting the cloying green smoke start to escape. "How bad is it?"

The unicorn pushed his fillies aside, focusing all his attention on Arcadês. "Bad. She started un-eating a cake before I came here." Arcadês chewed her lip and stared into the middle-distance. Acts of chaos that pronounced were a sign of advanced stages of The Discording. Had her prior cure failed? She began passing ingredients through her mind, piecing together a mental picture of what she'd need.

"You'll bring her to me within the hour. Don't be too early and don't be too late." She looked to one of the fillies, who was staring at her from behind her father, suddenly expressive and bashful. "Leave these ones with a friend if you must, but don't bring them along."

The stallion gave her a curious look, but nodded in agreement. As he left, Arcadês moved to her saddlebags and pulled them on. She'd been worried about this situation, ever since the stallion walked in and told her his wife had suffered from The Discording, despite her efforts. Had she been too late? Quickly, she hurried to get the reagents she needed before the unicorn and his wife arrived.

---

Many would claim that Equestria was beyond salvation and if Arcadês had her way, she'd dose all the naysayers into a hundred-year slumber rather than listen to their doom and gloom. She trotted into the Everfree Forest, eyes resolutely forward. This was the best place for unusual reagents and had been where Arcadês had found the herb she'd used to cure The Discording for the first time.

She'd been the catalyst for hope among ponies. From all over Equestria they flocked to her home town Resting Rocks to get her cure. She distributed it as best she could, but she was one pony, screaming into the madness. Herbalists from all over attempted to recreate her work and only a handful ever succeeded, and never with the same potency as her. It was little solace to know that The Discording was curable, when the cure was so difficult to attain.

And yet, hope was there. Arcadês pushed aside a branch, eyes downcast in an attempt to find the herb she sought. She'd given the sickly black, spiked weed it's name – Everfree's Shackles – because of how they weakly grasped at anything close to them – especially living things. When mixed with Poison Joke, Herobane, and several regular medicinal plants, they produced a sticky green paste that could be ingested to rid the patient of The Discording.

She smiled, seeing several of the persistent weeds meekly wrapping around a small sapling that was easily overpowering them. Perhaps Arcadês was crazy, but she felt their actions were almost... alive, somehow. She chuckled to herself; of course they were alive. All plants were alive. But these weeds, they moved almost constantly and sought to strangle things in their limp grip. It was almost like they wanted to destroy the forest, but couldn't be bothered to muster the strength. Or perhaps they just weren't strong enough to win.

"I know how you feel, little weeds..." Arcadês pulled the weeds up, snipped them at their base, and placed the clippings into her saddlebag. She continued doing this for about twenty minutes, before she hurried back home. She'd need to brew up her medicine before the unicorn arrived, else she might seem less than competent.

In terms of chaos, Resting Rocks was a rather tame place. The land was still corrupted of course, but thanks to Arcadês' presence, most ponies there were normal. There, the villagers were cured and protected from The Discording, thanks to their closeness to the alchemist. But some refused her help and succumbed to the chaos, while others were simply unaffected by the medicine. Arcadês didn't know why this was the case, but medicine was fickle like that.

Mortar and pestle clacked together as Arcadês ground the Shackles into a black and green paste. She kicked back with her hoof, pressing her bellows to prepare her fire for the mixture. One by one she added her ingredients, muttering their names to herself by habit. This poultice was far more complex than the one made for the fillies earlier. They hadn't been fully in the grips of The Discording yet and the earlier stages were much easier to cure.

Careful to not touch it directly, Arcadês began grinding some dried Poison Joke into a powder, still fueling the bellows. She counted each press with her hoof, until the fire was just where she liked it. Adding some water to her cauldron, Arcadês added in the powdered Poison Joke, setting the Shackles aside. For some reason, they had to be put in last. Deciding she might as well make a whole batch of the cure, Arcadês began grinding more Poison Joke, letting muscle memory and habit take the wheels while she considered things.

It had been almost twenty years since the Pillars of Equestria had vanished. Twenty years under the cloven hoof of Discord's reign. He'd swooped in almost as soon as the Pillars had gone missing, dethroning the ruling council, snatching the crowns from the princesses-to-be, and taking his place as Equestria's ruler. Not that he took that position very seriously; Discord was afraid to commit to the role of leader and instead chose to simply spectate as the world went mad.

However, despite the misery and discomfort ponies lived in, Discord was strangely good in some ways. Many common illnesses had been eradicated thanks to his alterations of the normal world. He had created a plethora of new plants and other reagents for Arcadês to use, some of which proved to be more than slightly useful. And, above all else, Discord wasn't violent. Insane, most certainly, and cruel as well, but he never harmed anypony without reason. It seemed, from what Arcadês could tell, that chaos was an art-form for Discord, and to harm his audience would be to detract from his work.

Despite all this, Arcadês found an intense loathing for the tyrant burned into her very soul. She'd seen his Discording pull apart relationships and shatter families. Ponies either drowned themselves in unhappiness as they watched their loved-ones devolve into chaotic versions of themselves, or became brainwashed by the chaos bubbling in their brains.

She shredded the Herosbane, a thick leaf with pasty white sap in the middle, and began squeezing the sap directly into the cauldron, mixing as she did so. Her tail swished behind her as she felt a sizzle shoot through her cutie mark. Sometimes, one just needed to take a moment to enjoy their destiny, and Arcadês loved brewing potions. The mark of a good medicine-mare was the good she did for the ponies around her, and Arcadês was one of the best.

She was nothing unique, as far as she was concerned; only the situation dictated her value. She had gotten her cutie mark when she'd accidentally mixed together a poultice against Cockatrice Pox without even realizing it. Her parents had been so proud, they'd carried her through the streets of Fells Point and shouted out their praise.

But that was a time before the rise of Discord. Now, doors were oftentimes shuttered for fear of spreading The Discording among one-another; for the first ten years or so there was no known cure for it. Arcadês was lucky to be one of those immune to the magical ailment, but her parents...

Her father had succumbed first, going from a quiet, peaceful stallion author into a loud, boisterous, and unbearably smug musician. Normally, nopony would've cared about this, except his songs weren't very good; aside from being just generally awful, they almost exclusively were about either himself or Discord.

Her mother took her daughter and everything she could pull in a cart, and fled the village, hoping to escape The Discording by living alone. She succumbed eight months later, after a Discorded traveler tap-danced over their cart. She began howling at the moon, which would prove agitating, since the moon and sun infrequently changed places. She'd scratch herself like a dog and slowly lost the ability to speak. Arcadês, only fourteen at the time, was forced to leave the heavy cart and press on alone.

After almost stumbling into the cure several years later, she'd gone looking for her parents. Her father had found another wife, started another family. She had left him, his new wife, and her three half-siblings in the Discorded state that had become normality for them. Taking them out of it at this point would only harm them all in the end.

She'd never found her mother.

Back in the present, Arcadês added the last of the Herosbane and stirred the mixture until it was well blended. The powdered Poison Joke latched onto the pasty texture of the wet Herosbane sap, forming globs inside the cauldron. Arcadês continued to stir until this blend of magical herbs became almost gummy-like in consistency before adding in the mundane herbs.

She measured everything carefully, planning on making precisely enough to dose fifty ponies total. She smiled herself as the potion took on a slight luminescence; a sign that she was doing things right. She was about to add in the Shackles when there was a knock at her door. Pausing, she looked over to the water clock on her shelf; it had been well over an hour. She'd lost track of time and hadn't realized how long she'd been working.

But why was the unicorn so late? He wasn't a local, so she didn't know him or his family well enough to presume their personalities, but surely he cared enough about his wife that he'd get her here as soon as possible. She set the final ingredient down slowly, wondering about possibilities. He could've been Discorded himself and became melancholy, taking his time rather than hurrying like he normally would. Her condition might have worsened and he'd had to struggle to get her here. The worst possibility she could predict was the chance that she'd harmed herself while he was away and he'd needed to take time to mend her injuries. It wasn't uncommon with those lost in the throes of The Discording...

She opened the door, ready to greet her patient, but she froze with the words she'd meant to say lodged in her throat. After a second to recover, she finally spoke. "What... happened to her...?"

"I-I don't know," the unicorn sputtered, eyes wild and terrified, "she wasn't like this when I left her to come to you!"

The pegasus' body was warped. Flames danced at the end of her mane, filling the air with the scent of burning hair. Presumably, it was growing so fast that the fire never reached her head, but Arcadês was in no mood to study this latest affliction. Her hooves had half-shifted into strange claws, she had developed strange pink-ish rashes over her otherwise pristine green coat, and her pupils were almost snake-like slits with no irises.

This... The Discording never changed a pony's physical appearance, aside from the common draining of color. But this mare was as vibrantly colored as she always probably was, if not more. Her coat practically gleamed, as did her eyes. She tilted her head to the side and a long, thin, forked tongue slithered from between her lips to taste the air.

"Entropic transformation? Not good." She took a few steps back, adding the Shackles into the brew. She'd liked to have measured the roots accordingly, but her nerves were fraying, and this situation was getting worse by the second. "Get her inside. Now!"

Author's Note:

For those of you wondering, I've done a bit of planning for this. In the show, Discord is shown throwing Plunderseeds at Celestia and Luna just prior to being imprisoned. However, my thinking is, why would he wait this long to plant the seeds? My theory is that, by throwing the seeds at them, he was marking them as additional targets and had already seeded the Everfree Forest long before that encounter. Discord is nothing if not a strategist, and I find it hard to believe that he'd have left the Tree of Harmony unattended for long during his reign.

Comments

[Robipony]

By the way, I'm loving the new cover art.

[Mix-up]

Hum, interesting the solution to immortality for that earth pony was to be turned into a slug, I would love to see a clop of that. I do like you writing and writing so far, I will be looking forward to see what happen next.

[Quillian Inkheart]

9593200
Well, slime ponies have no organs to degenerate and restore lost cells through simple nutrition. They are immune to diseases and common illnesses, since they have no bodily fluids to transfer bacteria, nor organs/cells for the bacteria to infect. As long as they aren't killed be external means, a slime can live forever.

[P6rT]

Another great chapter! Can't wait to see what happens next!