2 - Parasite
Chapter Two
Parasite
Ripped from her dreams, Sunset suddenly jerked awake. On pure instinct, she swallowed to remove the obstruction in her throat. Her returning consciousness just barely registered the one distressing fact about the thing sliding into her stomach. She noticed that it was long, smooth and getting thinner as it went along, but that was not the distressing part.
The part that immediately brought her to full wakefulness and to the edge of panic was something else about the object.
It was moving.
On its own.
As in, the object was no object. It was a creature. A living creature. She shot to her hooves. Her panicky mind just barely managed to remind her that there were others sleeping around her. She could panic, sure. In fact, given what little she knew about what had just happened, that seemed entirely reasonable, but that would wake the others.
Maybe she really had been in Britain too long, but she didn’t want to wake them if she didn’t have to. And she was Celestia’s student. Or had been. Either way, she could probably handle whatever had just happened. After she was done freaking out. Looking around, she moved to find someplace where her panic wouldn’t be heard.
She dove for one of the tents.
One quirk of the undetectable expansion charm the wizards used, one her own version had kept, was that sound wouldn’t pass into or out of them while they were closed without a special charm to enable just that. Since she had charmed the tents herself, a simple mental command was enough to disable that charm.
The last of her self-control thoroughly gone, she broke into a panicked scream.
A few minutes of panic did wonders to get her emotions back under control and her mind working. That the sensation of the yet unidentified creature sliding down her throat kept replaying in her mind didn’t help her calm down at all. It did, however, allow her more rational mind to learn all it could about the thing.
It had been long and slender, ending in a narrow point, like the tail of a snake. But it had clearly been smooth skin, no scales anywhere.
Not a snake then. Given just how smooth the skin had been and considering the complete absence of fur, the creature was most likely amphibian. That, along with the fact that it had clearly jumped down her throat of its own volition, finally reminded her of something she had learned of during her tutelage under Celestia. Arcane biology to be exact.
Celestia had told her of a rare creature that matched all she knew about her mysterious intruder. More importantly, the lesson had come with a spell. If the creature was truly what she suspected it to be, she would know in a moment.
It took her several seconds to cast the spell. Panic, it turned out, was not exactly conducive towards the use of magic. When she finally did cast the spell, her panic ebbed off somewhat.
Her guess had been correct. The creature was what she had suspected. That also meant it would be perfectly fine, and so would she.
The lesson had taught her that what had just happened was a perfectly normal part of the creature’s life cycle. Imagining the process had, however, thoroughly grossed her out at the time, and experiencing it firsthand was, if anything, even worse.
The creature that was, according to the spell, now residing, alive and well, in her stomach, was a so-called alp-luachra. A small, magical amphibian that essentially looked like a tiny pony with a membranous fin in place of a mane and a long, serpentine tail several times the length of its body.
Given that the relevant lesson had been before her little stunt with the memory spell, Sunset was a bit fuzzy on the details. Fortunately, she had a book on Equestrian wildlife in her suite at the palace. Considering that she wasn’t exactly likely to get any more sleep anytime soon, she might as well look it up. It might help calm her down.
Hermione had been sound asleep a moment ago, dreaming of something or other. She wasn’t sure. She only knew that she wasn’t asleep anymore. She wouldn’t exactly call herself awake either, but she certainly wasn’t asleep anymore. And she couldn’t tell why.
By all means, she should still be soundly sleeping. The mossy ground beneath her was soft and comfortable, the summer air was warm, soft snoring filled the air, letting her know that the others were alright, and her sister was sleeping right next to her.
No.
Her sister wasn’t sleeping right next to her. The magical connection between the two had grown much deeper after a year spent in near constant close proximity. She had been able to feel Sunset’s presence in her immediate surroundings. It had helped her fall asleep. That said presence was now gone explained why she had awoken.
She cracked her eyes open and slowly got up. She could still see the flattened down moss where Sunset had been sleeping. Touching the area with her hoof revealed it to still be warm. Sunset couldn’t be far.
She was about to go look for her when the flap of the girls’ tent opened and Sunset came out. When she saw Hermione, she looked at her for a moment then slowly approached. Hermione simply tilted her head, well aware that talking out loud would risk waking the others.
Sunset stopped before her, lowering her head and lighting her horn with just a small amount of magic, just enough to create a faint glow. It took Hermione a moment to understand what her sister was doing, then she did the same, lighting her own horn and crossing it with Sunset’s.
Once more, the connection between them deepened and she immediately understood what was going on. More or less. Immediately, a slew of questions came to her mind, but Sunset sent back a single idea. Both of them stepped back and looked at each other, nodding. Then they both walked around the tent Sunset had come out of.
Once they were behind it, where they no longer had line of sight to any of the others, Sunset lit her horn properly and they both vanished with but a wavering of the air.
The moment they reappeared in Sunset’s royal suite they both took a deep breath, knowing that they needn’t be silent any longer.
“What was that? I mean, I get something happened, but I didn’t get anything specific.”
Sunset shook her head. “The book can probably explain it better. I wanted to look it up anyway. Just give me a moment to find it.”
Taking another deep breath, Sunset walked up to one of the book shelves looking over the titles. “Not here, hm? Then maybe …” She walked up to another shelf. “Ah, here we go.”
“A book on the species of Equestria?”
“Yeah. You’ll see.” Placing the book on her desk, Sunset flipped it open and looked at the index. Then she started looking through the pages for a moment. “Here we go, there it is. Come.”
Walking up beside her sister, Hermione looked at the book, seeing the illustration of the creature Sunset was looking up. She only glanced at the miniature pony with the long tail for a moment before joining Sunset in reading the description.
Once she had finished reading, she took a few moments to look over it again, then she looked to Sunset. “Sis, why are you looking up magical stomach parasites?”
Sunset raised an eyebrow, looking at her in exasperation. “Take a wild guess.”
“Huh? Wait.” Hermione blinked for a moment, then glanced to Sunset’s barrel. Then back to Sunset. “You? No.”
Sunset groaned. “Yes.”
“Really? Cool. I mean, it’s weird, but it’s cool.”
Sunset’s jaw dropped. “Really?! That’s your reaction? It’s crazy, that’s what it is. There’s another being living in my stomach. That’s not cool at all. It’s gross. It’s weird. It’s … I don’t know! It isn’t normal anyway.”
“It’s normal for them. Pretty much necessary, actually. And since when do you care about what’s normal? You traveled to another dimension. That’s about as far from normal as it gets.”
Sunset groaned. “I know. I wasn’t in a particularly good place back then. And it’s not like I could just go back. It took half a year until we figured out Philomena could just take us back and by then … well, you know.”
Hermione smiled at her. “Yeah, I know. Still you always seemed to me like a very ‘go with the flow’ kind of person. I don’t know why this bothers you so much. From what I can see from this there isn’t anything dangerous or malicious about these things. They actually sound kinda useful.”
Sunset sighed. “You don’t get it. There are … implications.”
“Implications?”
“Yeah, cultural implications. These things are rare. Like, seriously rare. And with ponies living in towns and cities, further away from nature, it’s become even more rare for one of us to be chosen as a host. It’s actually seen as a great honor. At least by those who know what these things are. They’re kinda obscure.”
“Okay, I still don’t get where the problem is.”
“The problem is that there are expectations linked to being chosen as a host. And I know these things intellectually. That doesn’t mean I can just accept them emotionally. If anything, living with humans made it worse.”
“Really? How so?”
“One word. Meat.”
Hermione cocked an eyebrow. “Huh?”
Sunset sighed once more. “I’m a pony. When I came to Earth I was used to a sugar-rich, vegetarian diet. The only reason I didn’t completely freak out the first time your parents put meat in front of me was that I had prior warning. Well that and it was bacon.”
Hermione looked a bit dumbfounded at that. “Uhh, how does that-”
“It’s bacon. It’s tasty, okay?”
“Can’t argue with that. Still, what does this have to do with your new … uhm … guest?”
“I’ve just barely grown used to eating parts of other living creatures. And only because I know they were never sentient to start with. This is different. Not only are these things fully sentient, this one is also still alive inside me.” She sighed again. “Waking up with a freaky half-pony, half-lizard thing half way down my throat probably didn’t exactly help either.”
“Well, okay, I get that. Probably not the best thing to wake up to. Honestly I don’t know how you managed not to wake all of us up. I know I would have probably screamed.”
“I know for a fact that you wouldn’t have.”
“Huh?”
“I would have screamed … you know, if I hadn’t had a weird lizard thing lodged in my throat.”
“Oh yeah. That would get in the way of that, wouldn’t it?”
“Absolutely. I’m pretty sure the reason I woke up in the first place was because it got in the way of my breathing.”
“Yeah no, really not a great thing to wake up to. Still, you’re properly awake now. Why are you still so freaked out about this?”
“I … I don’t know, okay? I spent like five minutes or so panicking before I could even calm down enough to figure out what kind of crazy thing just jumped down my throat.”
“I see. Probably an emotional thing then,” Hermione remarked, frowning in thought. “Think approaching this whole thing rationally would help?”
“Maybe?”
“Okay. So what else do we know about your new guest?”
“Uhh, nothing really. Celestia taught me about these things years ago. Before the memory spell. It was sheer dumb luck that I even remembered the spell to check if it actually was one.”
“Oh. There’s a spell for that?”
Sunset actually chuckled this time. “You’d be surprised what kind of crazy nonsense there’s spells for.”
“Fair enough. I remember seeing entire spellbooks specifically to prank people when we were at Flourish and Blotts. Think you could modify the spell to tell you more about it? Weave a diagnostic spell into it or something.”
“Huh. That could work, actually. Hold on.” She sat down closing her eyes for a moment. Then she lit her horn. “Okay, let’s see here. It’s a female.”
Hermione glanced at the book again. “Uhh, yeah. They all are. It says so right here.”
“Oh right. Let’s see. She’s about twenty centimeters long if I’m judging this correctly. Not fully grown yet.”
“Hold on. Twenty centimeters? Not fully grown?” Once more, Hermione glanced at the book. “I’m still not familiar with Equestrian measurements. How long do they get?”
Sunset took a look at the book again herself. “About forty to fifty centimeters, why?”
“Wait, fifty centimeters?” Hermione glanced at the illustration again. “And that’s to scale? How would something that size even fit in there?”
Sunset sighed as she remembered the reason Princess Celestia had taught her about these creatures in the first place. “It wouldn’t. Remember how I told you most modern illusions were originally based on thessian shadow magic?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Well, they’re not the only kind of magical pattern unicorns appropriated like that. Now where do you think we got the basis for our spatial expansion magic from?”
“Oh! Wait? So if these things don’t have enough room, they ... make room?”
“Yeah, it’s part of their innate magic. Actually, I think there’s more to that, but we won’t find that in a book about biology. And I’m pretty sure that’s the only book I have that actually deals with them. I’d have to get one about their magic from the royal archives. And those aren’t open at this time of night.”
“Oh yeah.” Hermione let out a yawn. “It’s the middle of the night, isn’t it?” She grinned sheepishly. “Think we should head back before one of the others wakes up and starts to worry?”
“Probably best. Though I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep after this.” Letting loose a yawn of her own, Sunset folded the book closed and floated it back to the shelf. “Let’s get back.” She stepped up next to her sister. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
“Okay.”
With a wavering of the air, the two sisters vanished again, the magical lighting of the royal suite going out the moment they were gone.
They arrived back behind the tent and Sunset stepped out and back towards the others. She let out a relieved breath when she saw that all the others were still there and sound asleep. Seeing that Hermione had followed her, she curled up where she had been sleeping before and closed her eyes.
She had been right. Finding sleep would be a challenge. The sensation of the alp-luachra sliding down her throat kept replaying in her mind. She was only mildly startled when she felt Hermione cuddling up to her. She smiled softly as she cuddled into her sister’s fur.
Suddenly, finding sleep seemed a lot easier.
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So it has the opposite of Choranaptyxis (growing and shrinking to fit available space) and it instead increases the available space so that it fits!
I'm more curious about how traveling between dimensions and changing forms will affect things.
Granted, I'd much rather get back to all the stuff we were left wondering about at the end of the last story.
Kinky?
I guess that's one way to give Sunset Basilisk immunity
Ohh, I assumed it was malicious
I feel like this shoud have some rather large implications. Unless I'm mixing up lore from other Potter/mlp stories, in this realm dimensional travel automatically changes ponies to humans. This creature has been shown to be pony-esque and reasonable intelligent/sentient. So either Sunset will be starting the next semester pregnant, or we're going to need a real novel magical solution.
On the other hand, I rather hope she becomes smart enough to communicate and become a character. With everyone so competent, we the readers have been slightly lacking a relatable character who knows nothing that the others can exposition to. Plus that'll save her from being just a macguffiny chekhov's gun towards basilisk poison problems.
And just imagine the ramifications if they can teach her magic!
See I told you it was harmless.
9874234
Poisons immunity, not petrifickation stare immunity.
There is "minor" diffrence.
9874234
Well at least immunity to basilisk venom, though as we all know that is far from the deadliest thing about them.
Maybe they should talk with Celestia in the morning
9874332 9874295 9874288 9874234
I'm honestly rather amused that everyone seems to jump to the whole Baselisk Venom idea. Were talking about an endoparasitic creature that lives in the stomach of its host. I didn't expect I'd need to specify that it has the ability to neutralize ingested poisons. Last I checked, the If-looks-could-kill snake wasn't known for sneaking its venom in its victims' food.
9874232
Some would probably consider it so. But, then again, that is true for almost anything. Sunset most certainly doesn't think so.
9874202
And of course there is a scientific term for that. Why wouldn't there be?
9874392
I was joking. Like I'm almost nervous to ask. lol
9874397
Since I evidently need to elaborate: Yes, that is indeed a fetish some people have. If you know what to look for it can even be found on this site. The only reason I didn't put a content warning on this is because I have no intention of actually describing it at any point in the story.
9874392
Can you link one of it’s stories?
9874405
One of its stories? One of whose stories?
9874407
The paricite
9874413
You know its name. I trust you can operate a search functionality?
9874415
Tnx
9874415
I only found a short one.
9874295
9874392
I'm making mac and cheese and mild shitposts, and nopony can stop me!
9874404
No, I get it. Was just joking
9874392
Ok, going sciency:
I study biologi at Gothenburg Universety.
Please dont take to serius.
This is often missused and a minor pet peevee for anyone who has studied biologi when it is.
9874392
To be fair, when it's only trait that we know is that it neutralizes poison, and we all know there's a big poison snake on the horizon, it's easy to jump to conclusions. Wrong though they may be.
9874392
Choranaptyxis was (at least the first time for me) said during the first Fantastic Beasts movie about the Occamy, which is choranaptyxic.
9874392
I realize that I was just playing along with the joke.
A quick google search tells me this creature comes from Celtic/Irish mythology. Though the idea to use it in an MLP setting might well come from Badumsquish.
9874392
More seriously for a moment, we're also talking about a canonically evil faerie from Celtic folklore that's being modified, at least, to neutrality; additional tweaks are fair game.
9874419
I did mention that there was only one other story featuring this concept on this site that isn't rated as mature. You won't see the other four while you have the filter on.
Yeah this grosses me out
But I have read too much about things like Cymothoa exigua and those poor Red Snappers.
I wouldn't really care if something like this was sentient or not I'd let it get removed no matter what.
nice work.
Not a parasite. Plain and simple. It's a mutualistic symbiosis. Also, a parasite is a symbiote, but specifically one whose presence harms its host, whether directly or indirectly.
9874608
No, actually a parasite isn't a symbiote. Symbiote derives from symbiosis, which, by definition, is mutually beneficial.
9874608
Hate to say this, but both you and Gerandakis are right... kinda
"Symbiosis" is the living together in a more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms. There are three kinds of Symbiosis:
Mutualism (where the organisms are mutually beneficial to one another)
Commensalism (where only one organism benefits but the other is not injured or physically harmed)
Parasitism (where one organism benefits to the injury of the other)
A parasite is not merely an organism that is attached to and feeds off of another organism. It is an organism that attaches to a member of a different species and feeds off that organism in a manner that is physically injurious to the other organism. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines parasitism this way:
An intimate association between organisms of two or more kinds; particularly one in which a parasite obtains benefits from a host which it usually injures.
You do know this creature is based on a real myth of a fairy? That is 100% the origin of the creature, not some author, though I admit to being curious what they did with it that was so NSFW, since the original creature is very much not NSFW.
I'm... not sure what to think of this whole parasite thing, hopefully it actually leads somewhere interesting and isn't just a way to give Sunset some new power or skill to make her seem amazing rather than actually flesh out her character.
I'm more curious about the tags, we were promised another pony coming to Hogwarts and since the author has no intention of bringing Twilight in it makes me wonder if the author is just trying to keep it a secret or if its actually some OC. If the pacing is anything like the first book it might be a while until we find out.
Despite my criticisms, I did enjoy the first book and I am excited for this book. Despite Sunset being a bland as hell main character everything else about this universe has managed to be interesting enough to make up for how uninteresting Sunset is.
The question becomes, what will happen to the alp luachra when Sunset passes through the portal?
9874701
You're describing mutualistic symbiosis. A parasite is called such because it engages in parasitic symbiosis.
So wait does the critter stay there for good or just untill it's mature? Cause well that would be important defining the nature of the relationship, if she is there till she's old enough that makes Sunset her second mother. If it's for good Sunny will lay eggs one day.
Lets see, this parasite is aquatic, has a long tail, and jumps into the mouths of hosts? If it were evil and controlled Sunset's body, this would be a job for SG-1.
Are you planning on trying to poison Sunset in the near or far future?
9875055
Oh buck-
And here I thought the lizard pony is few inches long. 50 cm
9874222
OUO Wonder if the alp-luachra will change across the dimensional divide and if not, will its eggs/young need to be pooped into a prepared pond? And what effect will partaking of a partially carnivorous diet have? 🦎
9875685
9875042
Yeah considering Harry Potter 2 is the Chamber of Secrets with the Basilisk I really hope this isn't some plan to make her immune to Basilisk venom. For one, venom isn't ingested so a stomach parasite shouldn't have an effect and for two, Basilisk venom is so potent it eats through whatever it touches like acid, not something you can really immunize against.
9883456
Mhh ... what shall I say? What shall I say...? I think I'l just say that there is a reason this story isn't called 'The Chamber of Secrets' and leave it at that ...
9874507
Hmm (lookup ... wikipedia has it under a different name ) ... ohh, the original is basically a magical tapeworm.
So it went from a tapeworm that consumes either 50% of what you eat, or all of it (depending on which site you look up), and makes you waste away until you lure it out, to a beneficial symbiote.
odd. ... How in the heck do you even get NSFW out of that?
9911166
Don't try to find out, you are too pure for this world ...
9875148
I mean, you are correct. Though in general, the term "symbiosis" has the connotation of being mutualistic.
I wonder what the term is for a symbiote that has both significant negative and positive effects on its host?
Who would have guessed vore that's SFW. Now is she a parasite or a symbiote?
True that. All bow down to one of the many foods of gods!