21. The Young Mare of the Mountain
The Substitute Librarian
The Young Mare of the Mountain
There comes a time in every young stallion’s life where they regret each and every horror movie they’ve ever seen, both the ones they snuck into when far too young, and the more recent ones with even better special effects. In particular, the ones that leap to mind are any where the monster is hidden in some dark and spooky location, and does not have the common courtesy to show itself to the camera right away. A wealth of cinematic experience accumulated over several years is able to be replayed through the modern miracle of adrenaline overload, such that every scene, every blood-dripping knife, every fanged monster, flashes across the eye with a vividness that directors would die to be able to replicate on the screen.
Emerald’s family had a history of heart problems.
For a fraction of an eternity in the engulfing darkness of the immense stairwell, Emerald was absolutely positive that meant he no longer had to worry about starving to death.
Most ponies would run away from something that caused them fear. Emerald was not most ponies. He had been blessed (or cursed) with an overwhelming curiosity toward dangerous magical things. While spiders, snakes, and husband-seeking mares still made him flee as fast as his hooves would carry him, the bellow of an unknown creature or the whizzing-bang of a malfunctioning spell made him stop and look to determine just exactly what creature it was, or precisely how the spell was detonating. He would still be terrified of dangerous things, of course, but at least he would know what he was terrified of, and just exactly what the best approach was in order to maximize his chances for survival. Since he had considered himself to be the only pony in the emergency evacuation staircase for what seemed like most of a day’s descent but was probably only a few hours, his scrambled mind promptly arranged the possibilities in the most rational format.
The cause of the unexplained light is:
☐ — A malfunctioning lighting device
☐ — A rescue team
☐ — A malfunctioning lighting device carried by a rescue team
☐ — Another lost pony (malfunctioning lighting device optional)
☐ — Unexplained natural phenomena worthy of a quick look and that’s all
☐ — Monster (see subtypes A-M, Subterranean, Carnivorous, Hungry
☐ — Creature not identifiable as monster, or herbivorous, or even vegitative
☑ — A vengeful Twilight Sparkle, hunting down a particular book-pulper
Admittedly, he did not really expect to encounter Twilight Sparkle in the pitch-black mountain stairwell, but it was best to be prepared for the worst. Besides, the Element of Magic would generate a much brighter light, or at least right before he was hit by the magic beam that would turn him into glowing library dust.
The light was either brighter than he expected or his eyes had adapted to the dark. It took several landings worth of slowing steps before the source became more visible in a way that slowed his hammering heart and nearly made him laugh out loud.
☑ — Loose lightning bugs
All of the blinking insects had survived the fall, escaped from the dropped lantern, and were glowing on the walls of the last landing where the stairs turned into a large flat area. The fate of the lantern was fairly obvious and widespread, leaving a few thousand tiny glitters of shattered glass among the golden flecks of mica in the surrounding granite. It was kind of beautiful in a glad-it-is-not-me way, although the twisted metal of the lantern housing was ugly and sharp, so he dismissed the idea of carrying it along with him to the eventual exit at the bottom of the mountain. Besides, the Deep Storage sub-section of the Archives probably would not give him any of the damage deposit back anyway.
A long and extensive examination of what little of the area he could see by the light of scattered bug-butts showed there was nothing more ‘down’ where the huge square stairwell ended than the solid stone landing. A massive arched tunnel stretched onward to one side, with an upraised section where a guide would stand during a real evacuation, shouting directions to move along and not crowd. Most likely, another stairwell awaited at the end of the tunnel, a clever engineering trick to keep the size of the evacuation segments manageable. After all, one huge stairwell from the top of the mountain to the bottom was a single-point failure, while a few dozen parallel staircases with interconnecting tunnels could suffer the loss of several components and still allow all of the Canterlot residents to evacuate safely.
Engineering critiques. It’s my father’s influence. Admittedly, it’s not a bad influence…
Since there still was a brisk breeze blowing out of the massive tunnel, and he could see unlit arrow-shaped unicorn lighting devices along the sides, his path onward was obvious, but the sensation of having at least some light made Emerald stop for a brief break.
“You know,” he mused to himself since he was the only one there, and he did know, “if I had a light, these stairs wouldn’t be a bad exercise routine. I mean I can’t give up half-way through unless I want to wind up starving right where I am now. Total commitment, after all. Of course, I’d have to leave word with somebody so search and rescue knows where to look in case I fall down and break my neck, but other than that trivial detail, this is going to be good for me.” He stretched one leg and tried not to wince at the sensation of white-hot wires running up his thighs. “Of course, I should have started with a smaller staircase,” he added once he could talk to himself again.
It was a shame there was no way to gather up the lightning bugs, but he had no place to put them. It was also a shame that there was no flashlight just sitting there, either. Or a rescue team with their own cute pegamedics, as long as he was fantasizing. Or maybe not, because the low rush of moving air was fairly good at hiding most normal noise behind a soft hush, but it did not conceal a quiet tap-tap-tap of something moving a short distance away.
☐ — Loose lightning bugs in tap shoes
There was a fair appeal to just running as fast as he could down the dark tunnel to the next staircase, but as Emerald sat stock-still and focused on his hearing, something deep inside him wanted to see what it was. After all, if he was going to tell this story to his future Canterlot students as a prime example of stupid decisionmaking, making them afraid of the evacuation route would be a terrible long-term result. So that reduced his list somewhat to more hopeful entries:
☐ — Another lost pony without a light
☐ — Unexplained harmless natural phenomena worthy of a quick look and that’s all
☐ — Monster (see subtypes N-Z, Subterranean, Harmless)
The noise appeared to be coming from one of the side-chambers off the stairs that he had to think of as ‘resting spots’ for the evacuees or ‘gasping spots’ to be more accurate for himself. Moving carefully in that direction, just barely able to make out the walls from the flickering of a few fireflies, Emerald tried his best not to make any more noise than possible.
Well, other than managing to ram his nose into an unseen dark wall.
“Ouch!” he yelped.
The noise stopped while he was holding his nose, which was better than a terrifying roar, at least.
“I’m sorry,” he added out of reflex and entirely too many unicorn etiquette lessons while growing up. “I didn’t mean to surprise you.”
Sometimes, doing the right thing by accident is just a matter of luck. An ever-so-faint hornlight began to illuminate the other end of the cavernous room, revealing a frightened unicorn mare who was looking in his direction. He could not make out many more details due to the glare of the light, which his dark-adapted eyes were taking with considerable tearing-up and blinking, but she at least did not look like some sort of terrible monster. Although, she could be single, so he was not completely at ease with her presence.
“My name is Emerald,” he continued in his most polite voice, realizing that the room only had one exit, and he was standing in it. “I was trapped in the stairwell when a door closed behind me, and I was walking down to the exit. Are you… lost?”
There was no response from the young unicorn other than to keep looking at him with her huge violet eyes illuminated by glowing hornlight. It was better than if she was firing magic spells at him, or attempting to drag him into a wedding, but still not quite what he was looking for.
Well, to be honest, at this point in time Emerald was looking for a lantern, but she was glowing, so that was close enough for now.
“If you would care to walk with me,” he continued carefully, “we can go down the stairs together until we’re outside. Or if there is an open door upstairs you know about, we can go there, if you would like. Either way.”
There was still no response, and if it were not for the light, Emerald thought he might have accidentally been talking to a statue.
“No pressure,” he said, placing his rump on the cool stone of the floor, with more than a few uncomfortable adjustments due to abused tendons and muscles. “I can talk, if you want. I’m good at talking.”
No response.
“Or listening,” he suggested.
Still no response. It made determining the identity of the quiet unicorn rather difficult:
☐ — Lost pony
☐ — Crazy pony (may or may not be lost)
☑ — It doesn’t matter. She has a light.
The silent response did narrow down his options:
☐ — Leave pony here and go on alone
☐ — Carry pony down the stairs (and probably break neck doing so)
☑ — Talk her into the trip. Be nice. Be charming. Offer her anything except a wedding ring.
“Ma’am, I really need to get downstairs and leave this place,” started Emerald with a slow but measured pace forward, and aimed slightly to one side of the young mare so as not to spook her. “It’s not safe for either of us to be wandering around in the dark, and I would be honored to offer my assistance as an escort to the exit. We can proceed at your pace and rest whenever you wish.” He drew up alongside the young mare, who was rather shorter than himself and built remarkably like Twilight Sparkle, only glittering.
It was extraordinarily rare to find a Crystal pony this far south, and unicorns of that type were even more rare, but the combination seemed to make up a hundred percent of the species canterlotus subterraneanes unicornes. He extended one elbow in a dignified fashion that any of his tutors would have found acceptable and nodded in the direction of the room’s exit.
“M’lady, if you would care to accompany me?”
The young mare did not seem to know what to do with his extended elbow, which was fine because Emerald did not want to go three-legged down the rest of the stairs anyway. She moved forward rather slowly, with her awkward partner staying right beside her.
If Emerald was going to be remotely honest with himself, the unwanted concept of ‘ghost’ had come up in the back of his mind several times during his mental argument, but the young mare’s coat was quite real against his sides with the occasional totally incidental touching he did. She was slightly more cool than he expected, but he presumed she had been down in the stone cavern for quite some time, and the natural slot of ‘undead monster’ in his mind was nothing he really wanted to face either.
“If you’re cold, I could give you my vest,” he offered during their slow walk back out to the stairwell landing. “No?” he added as she shook her head. “Well, it’s probably not that comfortable anyway. I keep the pockets full of children's toys for unicorn education. Well, they think they’re toys. Professionally, they’re field strength estimators and agility evaluators, but I like the ones that entertain children at the same time. Like… um… that,” he finished as the young unicorn’s hornlight brightened by some small fraction, and all the fireflies that had escaped when his lantern shattered began to float toward her.
It was unexpected, but the smallest amount of actual thinking made the mare’s reasoning obvious. “Oh, you want to take the fireflies with us. Of course. If we just leave them here, they’d wander around in the darkness until they di— Wait up just a second!” Emerald had to quicken his pace to catch up with the mare, who had begun to walk down the windy tunnel at a fair pace. It was nice to know she cared about the fireflies, but his ego was feeling a little squished at not getting the same consideration as glowing insects.
Thankfully, the end of the breezy tunnel opened up to another huge downward stairwell, larger than the previous one, most probably due to other tunnels converging onto the same spot. With a light source, even as dim as the young lady’s hornlight and the excited fireflies, the true beauty of the place spread out around them. Tiny flecks of mica in the granite shed a constellation-like quality to their walk down the stairs, and released enough tightness around his chest that he began talking again, even if she did not respond more than the occasional glance.
It was probably a release of nervous tension, combined with the excitement of finding a Crystal unicorn in this most unlikely of places, but once he began talking again, he did not want to stop. He told her about his goal of teaching young unicorns their first magic, and how his first steps along that path were shaping up, as well as Firelock’s untapped talent because everypony deserved a little forewarning even if being introduced to a unicorn with that name should have been warning enough. It was about half-way down the second set of stairs before a pesky detail that should have been taken care of before raised its head, and he had to ask the question he had forgotten up to this point.
“Pardon me, m’lady. I’m afraid I missed your name.”
“Name?” echoed the young mare, coming to a stop on the stairs and causing Emerald to stop too before he ran into her glittering flanks. “You want to know my name?”
It was the first words he had heard her speak so far, and if he had not already been stopped on the stairs, he most certainly would have stumbled to a halt at the melodious harmony of her voice, like a delicate crystal bell choir in full song. His own voice was like a bunch of croaking frogs in comparison, and Emerald was suddenly ashamed of his own meaningless babble, but not so ashamed that he refused to answer her reasonable question.
“Yes, please, m’lady,” he managed with as much attention to his pronunciation as possible. “I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
The crystal unicorn’s lips pursed ever so slightly in thought and she nodded. “Yes. We have. You mopped the tree. Very careful. No puddles.”
“Oh,” said Emerald with a rush of released tension. “You were in the library while I was mopping that day. I must have been so busy I missed you. Is… ah… Ponyville your home?”
There was another brief thoughtful pause, and she nodded before starting to descend the stairs again. It at least gave them something to talk about during the descent, or something for Emerald to talk about and her to nod occasionally.
The only problem was that Emerald continued to think while he was walking. Little puzzle pieces that refused to meet up along the corners and bits of gossip that he had accumulated from young unicorns mixed together into a strange shape that gave his mind a terrible conundrum and nearly made him stumble several times on the stairs. Eventually, it became too much to bear, and Emerald moved to block her path forward when they reached one of the innumerable landings, which gave him a place to talk without the possibility of rolling down the stairs.
“Just a moment, m’lady. I have to ask you something extremely important, and I know it doesn’t match up with any story, so I really should wait until we’re outside, but I have to.” Emerald took a deep breath, looked the unicorn in her glittering violet eyes, and asked, “You’re not a pony, are you?”
Several blinks later, the crystal unicorn tilted her head slightly to one side and asked, “Why do you ask?”
“A number of things. For example, you’re colder than a real pony, you don’t blink unless you’re looking at me, and you don’t breathe except when you’re talking.” Emerald took a quick breath of his own. “More importantly, you are so unique that if you had actually been in Ponyville, somepony would have certainly mentioned you. So I would really like to hear the rest of your story.”
“You think I’m a story?” asked the mare with her head still tilted to one side.
“Compared to some of the movies I’ve seen, that would certainly be a relief, but I was thinking more of an opera,” said Emerald. “My first thought since we are beneath the city would have been The Phantom, except I’ve never been able to sing while wearing a mask. Or Don Rocinante if you would be willing to play the part of my dedicated servant, Pinto. M’lady, with a voice like yours, I certainly hope you sing.”
“I… can,” admitted the crystal unicorn.
“Wonderful,” declared Emerald with one hoof held across his chest. “Our remaining journey shall be a time of great merriment and song as the intrepid young teacher and the mysterious beautiful mare proceed through the rest of our story, not resting until we emerge into the light of Day at the end. If this is indeed a story, you are a main character, and I am ever grateful to be in your presence.”
“So I’m a character in a story?” asked the glittering mare, only with the most puzzled expression on her beautiful face. “What kind of character do you think I am?”
“Oh, we are all characters in our own stories, m’lady. We live our lives guided by our own actions— if we are lucky—leaving behind a trail of memories that guide the future actions we take. What kind of character we are is up to us, and the list of available options is endless, m’lady. Even if you discount any horror movies, there are no end of stories where the handsome prince—which is supposed to be me in this—finds a mysterious mare in the course of his quest to recover a magic sword or free a kingdom from a curse. They meet by accident, or he rescues her from a terrible monster, and they travel together for some time. Some of the stories have songs involved, although I’ve never seen the appeal of singing in a Dark Forest where it might attract monsters. Anyway, in some of the stories the mysterious mare makes the prince swear not to ask her a specific question, or maybe never to look at her when she has her veil removed, and when he does—”
The crystal unicorn’s eyes had grown quite wide, and when Emerald did not supply any more words, she asked, “Then?”
Emerald shrugged. “Sometimes she turns into a monster, or in the more sedate stories she turns into seafoam or a pile of dry leaves. I think the story is supposed to make young stallions not ask future spouses too many questions. Most pony stories have similar themes so young minds can be appropriately moulded by older and more experienced teachers. Then there are students like me who like to turn these stories upside-down to see what makes them tick. The older teachers don’t like that very much,” he added. “Curiosity is to be rewarded, but not too much curiosity. So do you know what you are?”
“I… Yes. I’m Harmony,” said the unicorn after some brief consideration.
“Wonderful!” Emerald beamed and held out a hoof. “So good to meet you, Harmony. I’m Emerald, and I used to be a substitute librarian at Ponyville.”
The timid Crystal unicorn, or at least that was what Emerald was determined to keep thinking of her as, touched his hoof with hers, then looked totally baffled when he gestured for them to continue their path down the stairs. “But…”
“I think it only fair to let this story write itself,” said Emerald. “If you would care to accompany me the rest of the way downstairs, m’lady, I would appreciate it, not only for your brilliant personality, but… I’d appreciate the company as well as the light,” he added when Harmony looked puzzled. “I get convoluted and go straight over the top when I’m nervous. If you haven’t noticed.”
“Do I make you nervous?” asked Harmony as she started walking down the stairs at his side.
“Slightly. All ponies are trained from foalhood to distrust things they do not understand,” said Emerald. “Both instinct and a whole series of stories we are taught as we grow up shape our reactions to the unknown. I read many stories, from all kinds of species. I love hearing new stories.”
“I really don’t know very many,” admitted the young mare of whatever species.
“You deserve to know all of the stories,” said Emerald with a dramatic flourish of one hoof which nearly made him trip down the stairs. “We are beneath the most cultured place in Equestria. You have the resources of a gigantic library of unequaled size, within a short stroll of Theatre Row where there are at least a dozen different plays every night. Emerge into the open and handsome stallions will vie for your slightest attention, willing to take you dancing or dining as you desire. Or if you prefer a more academic experience, I’m positive Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns would welcome you as a student, where you can learn all about magic and its application to our daily lives.”
Emerald paused, catching a glimpse of Harmony’s wide frightened eyes.
“Or we could continue to talk while we travel, just the two of us,” he quickly added. “I am at your disposal, no matter who or what you are. I thank you, m’lady for your presence in this dark time of mine. It is certainly good fortune that brought you to my side, and I only hope that I can repay your generosity. And speaking from the point of view of a teacher, I would love to hear about you.”
“Well…” Harmony hesitated before reluctantly admitting, “You did tell me about yourself.”
Emerald nodded. “In probably far too much detail, so I’m willing to be quiet and listen for a while.”
* * *
The rest of the trip down the stairs was conducted at a slower pace, and not just because Emerald’s muscles were complaining with every step. He would have been willing to walk down a thousand staircases to listen while Harmony talked, no matter how much pain he had to endure. Curiosity was a dangerous quality in a pony, and Emerald had it in abundance. Knowledge about history was a rare and precious gift, and Harmony had a vast collection of mental treasures, despite her modesty.
They got along quite well.
Naturally, there was not enough time to fully explore her historical knowledge during their short remaining time descending the immense staircase, but Emerald was beginning to reconsider his rather impractical objection to marriage, at least in theory. In practice, going to his parents and introducing Harmony would be rather… interesting. After all, Father had a heart condition, and Mother really wanted grandfoals.
“And there is our destination,” said Emerald reluctantly. With the grandiose scale of the staircase/ventilation shaft, he had thought the exit would be a similarly immense portal with huge doors that neither of them would be able to push open. Instead, muffled sunlight streamed through a screened atrium that stretched upward for quite some distance overhead, but the actual exit for ponies was a dozen double-wide wooden doors that would have been able to accommodate a pair of wagons each, and still have space for a traffic pony to move things along. It looked more like a concert entrance than something designed for an entire fleeing city of panicked ponies, but there were probably several more like it at the bottoms of the other staircases, and it took little mental effort to imagine what the area would be like if actually used for what it was intended.
Packed nose to tail as far as the eye can see.
It was all just so ordinary that until Emerald pushed on the mechanical bar of the closest door and felt it actually open, he really had problems believing the reality of his trip. The blinding light of direct Sun making tears stream down his cheeks and the fresh scent of springtime air helped him recognize reality. So did the stream of fireflies headed past his ear in search of warm fields of sunlit grass and the first mosquito that landed on his back, triggering an instinctive tail-swat in return.
“After you, m’lady.” It was supposed to be a noble gesture, since Emerald had moved forward toward the door first and was standing like a doorstop to hold it open, but since he was temporarily blinded by the outside light, he really did not trust himself to move more than perhaps a hoofwidth in either direction without falling down. “I know you haven’t had much experience with Ponyville, but I’m willing to take a week or two off from school in order to show you around. You’ll just love Sugarcube Corner—if you eat pastries, that is—and I’m positive the Cutie Mark Crusaders will ask you about your Mark, so you should probably be ready for that. Oh, and Pinkie Pie likes to throw a party for everypony who comes to town, so if you see something moving in a high-speed pink blur, don’t worry. So far, I’ve managed to avoid the experience, but I’ve been told it’s inevitable. I can also introduce you to Twilight Sparkle, since she is…”
Emerald trailed off as the world came back into watery focus, with him holding open the door and nopony else in the vicinity, either Crystal unicorn or bemused bystander.
“Miss Harmony?”
Emerald really did not want to go back into the stairwell and look for Harmony because he was not positive he would be able to get back out again. Besides, Emerald had been quite specific in their conversation about not forcing the young Crystal mare into any uncomfortable situation, which in hindsight fairly defined Ponyville. He stood and looked around anyway, since there was no real time pressure, but the only sign she had ever been there was a single book sitting on the spring grass.
“There are no coincidences,” murmured Emerald as he leafed through the book, then slipped it into his saddlebag next to the untouched bottle of apple juice and the granola bar. “Then again, from what I know now, Harmony exists everywhere at once. She could have been in the library archives and retrieving the book at the same time she was walking down the stairs with me. Or I wonder if she picked the book up first before…”
The whole consequences of his recent conversation opened up before Emerald like the well-oiled jaws of a trap. He had just now discovered a secret that was known to only two other living ponies. And a large number of dead ones.
“Of course the Princesses know about her,” he managed through the beginnings of a full panic attack. “And since they know, and it is not common knowledge, they don’t want anypony else to know. They can’t let anypony else know. And I do now. The only way they could keep a secret like this is to ki—”
By that point, Emerald was gasping for breath so hard he could not talk to himself. Marriage was only a minor inconvenience compared to the concept of facing both Princesses of Equestria once and only once more. Things were getting blurry, and Emerald had to stagger forward into the tall grass to breathe with his thoughts whipped into a froth. Curiosity had never gotten him into trouble before, because there was always something that kept the consequences away. Now curiosity was about to end him, because there was no way he could keep his mouth shut with a secret this big trapped in his hornless head…
…before the ground came up and hit him.
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And one more chapter. It was a beautiful funeral. No, just kidding.
Figures he'd start to fall for the least eligible mare in Equestria.
10860736
The biography of Emerald the Hornless
I was born
I lived on this green earth for a number of years.
I learned something I shouldn't have.
I was killed graphically by the rulers of my land.
It was a beautiful (closed-casket) funeral.
Thank you for the chapter! Enjoyed it. :-D
He does have a talent for attracting the attention of powerful beings, doesn't he? This invites all kinds of intriguing questions, not least of which is how fine a technicality this is in terms of the story's central premise.
Looking forward to the arc's conclusion. Emerald has a lot to think about, and that's assuming nopony comes along and adds to the pile.
I see Tree has competition in the form of... another Tree. This one made of fancy crystal and magic friendship rainbow lasers.
Tree will be jealous.
“Pegamedic”.
My new favourite word.
Luna, dear, you can hit him with the Moon.
But I, Celestia, can hit him with the Planet.
10860891
"Technically, dear sister, he fainted."
"Still counts."
10860856 A pollination race between a socially inept Twilight Sparkle and a Tree that only know tree-stuff. It's going to be a Gallimufry Snail Race.
10860787 Yes, a lot to think about. Dangerous thoughts that could get him killed.
10860771 Celestia and Luna wouldn't kill him for what he knows. They'd just detain him somewhere he couldn't talk to anypony about it. Hm... The position of the Royal Companion is still open. And they can share.
10860750 Not sure if there is a mare less romantically inclined than Estee's Twilight, but it's a close race here. Just be glad they didn't take advantage of the dark to do other things.
"So." Emerald gulped as much as he could through a dry throat. "They're... mine?"
"Ours," said Harmony, putting a glittering hoof down to block the movement of one small chunk of glittering crystal who was working on separating out misbehaving stubby legs. "There's Ruby and Onyx, with Calcite over there, and the twins, Jadeite and Nephrite. They're chips off the old block, as your books say."
10860901
Oh, thank god there was no Zoicite...
*Pumps Shotgun*
We would be having, Words.
I cannot help but feel that it will do Harmony a world of good to be exposed to Emerald's perspective on things. Viewing things from the outside, as he frequently does, can cause the inside to make much more sense.
First big mistake of dealing with immortal rulers, assuming too much competence. They're ponies just like you, ponies who might not have had many opportunities to meet Harmony herself.
Also would kinda go against the entire idea of Her to disappear with someone she met and helped. And has a crush on due to the inevitability of the laws of romantic comedy.
Not to mention they could just say he was hallucinating
I still ship it though, they'd be adorable and cause conniptions in Twiggles
10860993
You can't ship Emerald with Harmony, I already ship Emerald with Tree.
...Which means the race to 100,000 ton super battlebarges begins NOW.
10861067
I deploy Confused Cadence in attack mode!
10861078
You'll need more than that to get through my 12 inch deck armor!
10861067
Crusader makes do with only 36 thousand tons?
Twilight:I have a Tree.
Harmony:I have a Tree too.
Pinkie:I have a Tree(3).
Im getting the feeling that the upper bound for Tree 3 might be between Aleph null and 1, given you need 2 dimentions to graph it out? That, and you can create all fibbonachi values, integer, from a single fully recursive homomorphic? tree representation, which describes everything Tree 3 cannot be?
10861107
10861150
This got very silly very, very fast
10861178 That's what happens with out of control shipping :)
10860901
Does shattering his pelvis repeatedly count as cruel and unusual punishment?
10860771
Which was then pulped by an irate librarian.
10861067 10861078 10861224
I’ll see your shipping, and raise your…
Harmony...
The same name I gave her...
Only difference; I gave her the Changeling Amulet Celestia had in the comics, so she could leave the Crystal Caverns and walk around. Granted, it was while looking like a white Pegasus with overdeveloped wings, but it is what it is...
Lovely story, with an Estee feel and vibe...
Lol, FANFIC WRITERS, TO YOUR KEYBOARDS!!!
...wait.
SCHLICK went the wet sound of razor-sharp metal slicing swiftly through flesh and bone, and Emerald's gasping head tumbled to the ground, his brain functioning long enough to view the sight of his collapsing body and the two scowling alicorns, the darker one turning to the white and sighing, "This one almost got out! I have oft told thee the need for death traps, Sister!" Shrugging, the white one took Emerald's body in her magic, "It makes it easier to find the fresh bodies we need to maintain our youth, with no awkward questions like we used to get when the constabulary would find us dragging a bloody corpse down the street!"
So grimdark.