Chapter 5 - The Dream
The night sky stretched on forever in all directions, including down. A trillion stars sparkled -- a trillion gaps in the firmament for a lost soul to fly to the afterlife. As Celestia stood in this void, somehow on firm ground, her first thought was that she had died there under the Vizier’s knife. She wondered about when she would stand before Crom upon his mountain throne and submit herself to his judgement: would he point to the path on his right and allow her to sit by his side and await the final battle, or would he point to the left where she will descend as a shade into the otherworld for the rest of eternity? Then she saw Luna.
“It worked!” She galloped on over to Celestia, somehow through a void with no visible ground, then reared up and threw her forelegs out to wrap around the big mare’s neck in an embrace. Rather stunned, Celestia could only think to pat her on the head. “I hope Father isn’t being too rough with you.”
“Where are we?” said Celestia.
Luna broke her embrace around the Cimmareian’s broad neck and stood back on her own four hooves. She looked around, grinning happily, and swept a glittering silver-shod forehoof around at the great expanse of stars all around them.
“Do you like it?” said Luna. “You’re asleep and this is your dream. Father doesn’t know about this yet, but if I concentrate I can see into ponies’ dreams.” She leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “It’ll be our little secret.”
Celestia stepped back warily, having earned a rather healthy respect for magic she couldn’t explain. Looking over her own body, she saw that the cuts, scrapes, and bruises she had earned to find Luna, her ‘fallen star’, in the first place had vanished. Even the thin coating of soot and grime had vanished, as though she had suffered one of those bath things that everypony else kept telling her she needed.
“How?”
“I don’t know. It just happens.” Luna shrugged and, apparently sensing Celestia’s discomfort, stepped forwards and placed her hoof on the taller mare’s foreleg. “You’re safe here. This is your dream, after all.”
It was a dream, but the hoof on her foreleg felt very real, as did that hug earlier. Even the unseen ground was as solid as stone. If she pricked herself, would she also feel pain?
“Luna,” said Celestia falteringly, as she struggled to think of how to word her thoughts carefully to avoid upsetting her new friend. It was silly, she thought, she had fought monsters and beasts and ponies who were little better, but this filled her with more dread. “Do you know what it is your ‘father’ does?”
“Oh.” Luna stepped back and rubbed her left foreleg with a hoof, ears drooping. “He helps the king rule and he thinks about magic things.”
“Do you know what he’s doing to me?” Something slimy and wet seemed to crawl up Celestia’s back, and she shuddered. “To my body?”
Luna turned and looked away, and said in a small, hushed voice. “My father is a good pony.”
Celestia felt a twinge on her horn, just where her ‘father’ had made the first incision with the scalpel. It was not that Luna truly believed that, but that she wanted to believe that the stallion she had called father for as long as she could remember is a good pony.
She sighed, crouching down and inclining her long neck down to the level of the smaller filly, and said, “Do you remember your mother?”
A moment passed, but it dragged like an age of the world itself. Here in this dream realm there was no wind, no heat or cold, and no sensation save the firm something beneath their hooves that kept them from plummeting into the endless void. Celestia watched patiently as Luna screwed up her face, her brow furrowing as she seemed to be right on the cusp of remembering a memory long-repressed, buried so deep within her but she could almost see the faint outlines of a mare and a stallion, the former with wings and the latter with a horn. Yet though the faces were blank voids and the ponies merely shadows, she remembered the feeling of love that flowed like a fountain from them.
“I’ll tell you about my mother,” said Celestia. “She is the strongest mare in our clan, except for me, of course, but that never stopped her bending me over her knee and giving my arse a slap if I misbehaved.”
Luna seemed to perk up instantly at that, that infectious curiosity returning to her eyes. “Can you show me? You said you’re from Cimmareia. I’ve only read about it in books.”
“I don’t know how.” Celestia looked around the void, seeing only stars.
“It’s your dream,” said Luna. “You just think about it and we’re there.”
“I will try.” Her mind cast back to her youth, before she left her homeland. Celestia pictured her village and the fields and hills around it, which had always seemed so big but now seemed tiny by comparison to what she had seen. She remembered the craggy hills, the stones, the sea by which her village was built, and the dark, forbidding forests she was warned not to go near for fear of the timberwolves that infested it. She remembered the wind.
A chill gust plucked at her mane. They were now atop a hill that overlooked a tiny village of crude hovels, shacks, and huts placed sparsely between vegetable plots and grazing ground. There was the chieftain’s hut, being the largest and, by their standards, the most extravagantly decorated, with a single red banner fluttering from a pole. Smoke rose from chimneys, carried away by the breeze. Ponies, all clad in rags and cloaks to provide some protection from the wind, worked on their plots, chatted, drank, and bartered at the local market for the scant amount of foreign trade that came in. ‘Foreign’, of course, meaning the next village over a mere two miles away. Further along, the ground sloped away to a pebble beach and a grey, churning sea that crashed in white waves upon it. In the distance endless hills filled the horizon, all drenched in fog.
“It’s just missing something,” said Celestia. Thin but consistent drizzle then descended from the skies, smothering the scene in even more grey. “There it is.”
It looked and felt so very real, as though she was truly there upon that slope overlooking the village where she once played games with the other colts and fillies. She was always the monster to be slain, of course. The long, overgrown grass beneath her hooves, the rain on her coat, the smell of the sea -- she was home.
Luna shivered in the rain and the wind, so Celestia rose to her hooves and extended her wing over the filly to grant her at least some comfort from the hardships she had long-since grown used to. Nevertheless, Luna was utterly entranced by this very ordinary scene unfolding before that she almost forgot the cold wind chilling her to the bone. Dozens of quite ordinary ponies, albeit shades of a dream acting according to the memories of the dreamer, going about their daily business. It was a scene she had certainly read about, but to see it with her own eyes, through the lens of a dream, was quite something else.
A little bit down the slope from where they stood Celestia saw herself, albeit a little younger, standing there with a stallion, her wing too outstretched to protect the smaller pony from the constant rain. To see her own body as another pony would was a little jarring to her, though seeing for herself the effects of all of that physical training her mother had put her through to build her into a warrior did fill her with some small level of pride.
Speaking of her mother, now that she had thought of her, a figure of a small, squat mare who wasn’t there before sat nearby and brooded over the scene of her village. Her coat was tan-coloured, almost blending in with the cloak on her back, and at her hip was battleaxe almost as big as she was. She was short, but about as wide as she was tall, and it was all densely-packed muscle. A lattice-work of scars criss-crossed her body.
“Is that your mother?” asked Luna. “She looks so serious.”
Celestia chuckled. “To lead the chieftain’s chosen warriors to battle you have to be,” she said.
“Who’s the stallion?”
“Tinpot, my big brother.” He was a small, rather scrawny pony who resembled his ‘little’ sister only in that they had four legs, two eyes, a nose, and all of the other necessary prerequisites to be labelled a pony. His coat was as grey as the stones around them, but his mane and tail were shocks of white. On his flank was a picture of a tin pot.
“He’s a bit of a strange one,” continued Celestia, smiling softly to herself. “He had no interest in being a warrior like the other stallions. Growing up, I had to protect him from the other colts. He had an idea about the metal in the hills near the village. It’s no good for making weapons, but he said the unicorns in the south want it and will pay us for it, and that will make us rich. Then we won’t need to keep kidnapping sheep from the next village, he says.”
“He sounds clever.”
“He’s very clever,” said Celestia, smiling proudly. “He knows his letters. But my parents wanted a warrior, and they told me that when my mother was pregnant with me they prayed to Crom, who clearly made up for Tinpot when I was born.”
Luna stared silently at the scene before her, utterly entranced by this modest spectacle of earth pony village tedium. Though the need to push her about her so-called ‘father’ burned fiercely in Celestia’s breast, threatening to force its way out of her mouth and demand that this sheltered little filly confront the horrid truth about the lie that had been her life, as she looked to the quietly shivering filly huddling under her wing, enraptured by something so simple to Celestia but so alien and exotic to Luna, she found that she simply could not. No matter the memories of the pain she had been through, to ruin what was otherwise a lovely moment felt like a sin.
“Where’s your father?” asked Luna.
“Probably out chopping wood,” said Celestia. “Oh, this is a dream. I can summon him whenever I want.”
A grizzled older stallion emerged into existence. Standing atop a rock, he was telling a story to his family, and despite his apparent age, he supplemented the telling by enthusiastically demonstrating slashes with an imaginary sword and dodging imaginary attacks. Over the sound of the wind they couldn’t quite hear him, but if Celestia didn’t know any better it was the story of how he met her mother again. It was a favourite tale of his to tell, and only when she visited the civilised lands did she find out that it was not considered normal for two ponies to fall in love after duelling for a night and a day on a corpse-strewn battlefield.
Luna leaned forwards, almost tipping over on her hooves, with her ears pricked as she tried to listen to the story, which contained rather more violence and bad language than the romantic epics in her book collection. Celestia looked down at the filly and smiled at the simple joy she was taking in this banal, everyday scene. Though she didn’t want to spoil her pleasure, she knew that she must wake up and the horror would continue.
It had to be done, and there was nothing else for it. Like the administering of a healing balm to a wound it would sting momentarily, but in time it would heal and hopefully leave an impressive scar behind. Celestia sucked in a deep breath and held it. She was not good with words, she thought, not like Tinpot, but perhaps here some Cimmareian bluntness was what was truly needed. “The pony you call your father is using you.”
“What?” Luna blinked up at her.
“Have you ever asked him about your mother?” asked Celestia.
“Well, yes, but he said he’d tell me when I was old enough.”
“And you are ‘nearly an adult’.” Her wing dropped to drape over the smaller mare’s body. “He is not your real father.”
Luna screwed up her face in an expression of rage, and pushed herself out from under Celestia’s wing, snarling up at her. “No!” She petulantly stamped a hoof into the grass. “You’re lying.”
“Then find me,” said Celestia calmly. “There you will see the truth for yourself.”
Luna shivered in the rain and the cold. “I’m not allowed in his workshop.”
“Luna, you will not see and experience the world for yourself unless you push the boundaries other ponies have set upon you.” Celestia held out her hoof to her. “I swear by Crom that I am speaking the truth.”
Another ageless moment passed as Luna stared at the huge, dinner plate-sized hoof before her. Then, as the moment passed and the rain of this dream-Cimmareia soaked into their manes and coats, Luna reached out and touched the hoof.
The dream world turned white.
***
Celestia awoke to a throbbing pain in her horn and forehead. The smell of blood had grown stronger. Added to the noxious mixture that suffused the room was that of urine, and judging by the warm, wet sensation on her hindlegs it was most likely her’s. She opened her eyes again, her vision swaying as though she had drunk an entire alehouse’s stock of strong ale again, and the stars of the dream realm still sparkled before her vision.
The Vizier was there, sitting on his haunches and staring at her.
“What did you do to me?” said Celestia, her voice cracking.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I only took a look inside your horn. I haven’t changed anything. Yet.”
“I can still…” Her head lolled drunkenly on her neck. Vomit rose up Celestia’s throat, but she swallowed that foul-tasting mess. “Take your head. Tear out your eyes. Slit your overbed throat.”
The Vizier’s grin glinted in the eerie light like a knife in the darkness. “You have no comprehension of the power you have. The poison should have killed you in seconds, but it did not. That lightning would have turned a unicorn to ash, but it only tickled you. So much magic potential, and you waste it all on mere flesh.”
A rectangle of bright light appeared in the room, briefly blinding Celestia with its brilliance. Blinking through the glare, she saw an expression of alarm on the Vizier’s face before he turned to look. Forcing herself to look despite the pain in her head, she saw a black figure silhouetted against the white. As her vision slowly adjusted, she saw Luna, her horn bright with the light of the moon on a clear winter’s night, stride into the room.
“Luna?” the Vizier said, rising to his hooves. “I told you not to come here!”
She didn’t seem to hear him, and instead looked around at the horrors of the ‘workshop’. Now that there was light, Celestia could see upon the walls blasphemy of almost every sort she could imagine and some that were far beyond her ken. Grotesqueries upon grotesqueries were nailed to the walls: things that were supposed to have been ponies, with too many wings and horns in all the wrong places. If that, she saw things that could only be described as ponies by applying a very loose definition of the term. A few, she noted, were very small -- foals. All of the Vizier’s failures to create more like her, among other atrocities that he had created and then discarded according to his vague whims.
Celestia started to feel a chill, and she wasn’t sure it was only to do with the abominations she saw on the walls.
“What happened to my mother?” asked Luna, her voice frightfully formal.
“She-” The Vizier’s mouth gaped, like a fish dragged out of water, and only a feeble croaking sound emerged. His eyes wide with terror, turning red at the edges, and his breath frosted in the air before him.
“The jars on the table,” said Celestia, indicating towards them with her muzzle. “I’m so sorry.”
Luna’s silver-shod horseshoes tapping against the cold marble was the only sound audible, aside from the Vizier’s ragged breathing and the rapid beating of Celestia’s heart. Her wide, terrified eyes drank in the gallery of sin before her -- the wretches that were once ponies on display like sadistic art. Her gaze moved quickly from one poor creature to the other to see the last moments of pain and torment etched forever on their faces, where there were still faces. She approached the table and saw the mutilated mortal remains of her parents. Her shaking hoof reached out to touch first the jar with the horn and then the one with wings.
“Mother, Father,” whispered Luna. She flinched from the jars as though her hoof had been pricked. “I… I remember them now.”
A single, strangled cry of despair rose from Luna’s throat. Her whole body trembled like an autumn leaf in a gale, and Celestia saw that it was not fear but raw, unadulterated rage. Luna’s sharp, delicate features twisted into a hideous rictus of misery now transmuted into anger, as she narrowed her piercing blue eyes - now bloodshot, teary, and filled with hate - on the pony responsible.
The light from Luna’s horn intensified, shining brighter and brighter until the room was flooded in it and all of the Vizier’s sins on display were fully illuminated. The temperature dropped, chilling Celestia to the bone far sharper than any wind and rain she had known before. Yet the Vizier seemed to be suffering the most for it -- his flesh under his coat turned a sort of red, cracked with black and blue bruises that appeared starting at his hooves, his breathing now rapid and shallow, and his eyes widened with the fear of a pony who knew precisely what was happening to him.
His jaw continued to flap uselessly, but, with one last monumental effort, he willed his blueing lips to form faltering words: “I-I did what I had to.”
“You took everything from me!” roared Luna.
The Vizier’s horn flickered with red light. Once. Twice. Then the appendage snapped off like an icicle and shattered on the ground, leaving a bloody, jagged stump. He tried to take a step forward, but when his forehoof touched the tiled floor it crumpled beneath him, breaking and tearing as though it was made of parchment. The second step brought his body to the ground, whereupon he shattered like glass into frozen shards.
The muggy heat of the room returned as the light from Luna’s horn dimmed. The manacles restraining Celestia crumbled in the cold and she slid down the metal slab onto her hooves, and was aghast when they splashed into the melting, gorey chunks of the Vizier. Dizzy and nauseated, she stumbled away from the visceral mess as quickly as she could manage without stumbling or falling.
Luna stood there, gaping in mute shock at what she had done. Terror, and not for the first time that night, had gripped Celestia’s heart like the talons of a beast. She had just seen Luna turn the very air inside a pony’s lungs to ice, and the implication that she herself might be capable of such magic too, sickened her.
Yet Luna was still a filly. Celestia stumbled on, almost tripping once or twice, and snatched her up in her thick forelegs in a fierce and tight hug to her barrel chest. It seemed to snap her out of her shock, as she squirmed a little against the veritable wall of the barbarian’s coat, before slowing and then sobbing into the soft fur.
“Don’t look at it,” said Celestia. “Just look at me.”
“I want to go,” said Luna, her voice muffled. “I don’t care where, just not here.”
Celestia looked behind her to see the grisly remains of Luna’s parents on the table, still there amidst the multitudes of abhorrent things. “What about your mother and father?”
Luna choked back a sob. “They’re gone,” she said. “Please, just take me away from here.”
They deserved a proper burial, cremation, or whatever it was that these unicorns do with their fallen, but looking at the mutilated organs it simply too ghoulish for either of them to even consider picking up and carrying. However, this awful place would become the Vizier’s tomb, ensconced with the horrors he had created in his quest for power -- Celestia found the irony grimly appropriate.
“I will.”
“You’ll look after me?” Luna looked up at Celestia, tears streaking down her cheeks.
The image of the Vizier turning to ice flashed into Celestia’s mind, putting to question that very idea. She looked down at the weeping filly, and found that, despite this, there was no part of her that would consider saying no.
“I swear an oath,” she said, raising her right hoof. “By Crom, I will not abandon you. May he strike me dead where I stand if I break this oath.”
***
Luna had brought Celestia her sword and saddlebags, and into the latter she had packed a few of her possessions: three books, some parchment and ink, and a few gems and trinkets of hers. She had brought no rations for the road, but as Celestia wanted out of the tower as quickly as possible and was suspicious of what the Vizier might have thought passed for food, she was content. Teaching Luna how to survive out there in the world would have to come later, she thought, for there would be plenty of time for that.
It was time. Luna led Celestia through hallways and rooms and down stairs she had not seen when she stormed the tower earlier. They moved as though in a dream, and indeed the nameless, empty environs of the tower seemed incomplete and lacking, as though unfinished on a level of reality itself. It was an uncanny sensation that could not have been put down solely to the pain and tiredness that sapped even her mighty strength and will, and it unnerved her greatly.
“Part of this tower exists within the dream realm,” Luna explained when Celestia asked if she knew where she was going. “That’s why it’s so big. It exists because of my- the Vizier used my magic to create it.”
They came down a long spiral staircase, lit from the high ceiling by a glow that seemed to have no obvious source, and which terminated into the grand entrance hall. The trapdoor Celestia had gotten herself stuck in was closed, the trap reset, and the sofa she had dragged to block the door was back in its original place. The many gems and curios on the pedestals seemed somehow vague and indistinct as she passed them by; she would see one, drink in the detail of the carving and the glimmering fire of the gems, but upon looking away almost forget what it was she had seen.
The doors opened into the garden, where about a dozen ponies, some of whom Celestia had recognised as bearing a stark resemblance to the statues she had encountered there, staggered about in dazed, fugue-like states. The morning sun crept over the palaces and spires of the upper city, dazzling the streets below in the light reflecting off their marble and jewelled surfaces, and as Celestia stepped into the light she was invigorated by it, as though awakening from a deep sleep. Life itself seemed to flood back into her very being.
Luna, however, stood at the threshold of the door, looking out at the garden, the ponies in it, and the city beyond. Knowing that as she crossed that threshold her life would truly begin, she hesitated; there was no going back, but she had already crossed that mental line the moment she had seen Celestia. When she emerged into the glow of the early morning, feeling the warmth of the sun for the first time upon her, she was as a newborn foal, with a life of experience and wonder stretching before her.
The dark tower, looming oppressively above them, seemed to flicker, sparkle, shudder in the light, and then was gone, as though it had never existed. All that hinted at its previous existence was this garden, and where its base once was the ground was black and scorched, as though the earth itself had been scarred by its presence.
“By Crom,” said Celestia, staring up at the space where the tower once was. “To Tartarus with these sorcerers and their plots. I need a mug of ale in my hooves and a pretty stallion on my lap.” She grinned at Luna, who marveled at the sights of the city. “And I know just the place and the stallion.”
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Ooh. You done goofed on one thing. That's not the proper quote you ponified.
Will take a look at this later.
It was my pleasure and privilege to be a pre-reader.
This is one of the top five pony stories I have ever read.
media1.tenor.com/images/8c8f18bec7ba6a1b7ddc2ef76664e9ae/tenor.gif?itemid=10584134
This story comes with my personal seal of approval. You can't go wrong in finding entertainment of all kinds in a story like this. Read it, favorite it, show it to your friends; then read it again. It's worth the time.
Well done, Raleigh!
Was an honour to pre-read this
I know it references the Hyborian Age, but I started hearing the Ogre Battle & Tactics Ogre music when I read this, specially with that quote at the beggining. Will not lie, got kinda disappointed it isn't the case. Shame the Ogre Battle Saga will never be completed, I love it
Still, this sounds awesome and I've got to give it a read.
Okay yeah, this was a really good short adventure. But I feel like it's missing something important: novelty. The prose is phenomenal and all of the characters (except the Vizier, lol) have depth, but the plot and setting just came off as generic to me. Whenever any new development happened, rather than going 'Wow, I didn't expect that, that's so cool!' it was more like 'Yeah, alright, that makes sense narratively,' every time. To use an analogy, it's like the fried rice at this one family-owned restaurant I frequent; the rice and vegetables are all cut and cooked perfectly, but I always have to ask for extra soy sauce because they serve it so under-seasoned.
Though I do kind of want somebody to mod Celestia into Slay the Spire now.
Damn, it's over? I want, like, 100k more words of this. Overall, interesting weaving of canon concepts and fantasy worldbuilding. But it feels like it could have more time/word count to develop concepts.
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Starter relic: Alicorn
Start each combat with 3 Vigor, 3 Plated Armor, and Scry 1 at the start of each turn.
Unique Boss relic: Princess
Lose your starter relic.
Start each combat with 3 Strength, 3 Metalicize, and draw 1 at the start of each turn.
Have Earth Pony cards which are high value, high cost cards (like Impervious or Dash), pegasus cards which are low-cost/card draw (like Dropkick or Just Lucky), and unicorn cards which scale. And some sort of mechanic which makes them synergize.
Eh, this is starting to sound like Watcher.
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Thank you for pre-reading and your advice too!
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That's fair assessment, and I'll admit to trying only for a 'really good short adventure' in the style of old pulp fantasy. But hopefully this'll set up for more daring stories in future.
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True, there is always space for developing world-building, though I wanted to keep the focus rather tight on Celestia herself.
Stumbled across this one while listening to the Conan The Barbarian soundtrack
From that opening text alone I can't wait to catch up and read more
This was pulpy as hell - and I mean that in all the best of ways. At the end here, I am struck by a feeling I haven't felt in a long time, that craving for more, but not just that - I can see where it goes and enjoy that journey without it being written.
Oh, yes, I don't know the exact ancient temples they would ultimately plunder and foul sorcerers they would throw down and in what order you would choose for them to do so, though I fervently hope you'll continue in this world; you've basically written the short story that begs to lead into - well, you know, a series of short or long stories or novels because any form can work.
This easily goes into favorites, because I can tell I'll be able to reread it and just let 'What comes next' bubble up, and float happily in that for a while.
Kudos, and would love to see the next obvious story in the cycle, which I currently imagine begins about 5 minutes into their first rainstorm. About, oh, when Luna begins to realize that adventuring may involve a lot more mud, cold, and ickiness then she had expected, and Celestia realizes her new charge can be very vocal in complaining about trivial things a mare just has to learn to live with, and ends with some newly discovered wrong righted and some new knowledge/skills/respect gained
Found this story in a blog post from one SockPuppet, and while my only experience with Conan is one of the cheesy old Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, I think you have a good thing going here, and as a fan of world building and historical fiction I hope you continue writing in this world.
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I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm definitely going to have to write more of their adventures now, as soon as I think of them. Temples, lost cities, monsters, horrors from beyond the veil, and Celestia and Luna's growing bond.
This is probably my favorite Celestia. Excellently written.
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The pre-Elements, three tribes pre-history of Equestria is potentially fascinating. I was thinking of how the world before the Elements and before the Magic of Friendship might look first, then realised it started to resemble old pulpy swords-and-sorcery. The Conan pastische was a natural evolution of that.
Luna: Sister, what is best in life?
Celestia: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their mares.
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boop
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Over the Christmas holiday I made some artwork for a story by another really good historical fiction writer here on fimfiction. I tried really hard to capture the harshness of the era described in the story.
Also, several years ago I found an amazing thing on YouTube called Historical Equestria, the person who made it narrated it in the guise of one of Canterlot Library's Chief Archivists and gave summarized accounts of Equestria's history from paleo-ponies to the modern era. Sadly, the artist in question suffered a massive burnt-out and hasn't uploaded anything since 2018.
I want… MORE. Great work! Really enjoyed it!
Awesome stuff throughout. Not the first time I've seen a barbaric Celestia, but a fantastically executed one. I do hope you explore this era further. (Also, nice tie-in with your other stories thanks to the House of Blood.)
A MLP Tower of the Elephant homage! You did a really good job! REH as source material yielded a wonderful dividend with this and I say this as a REH fan from my youth. You wrote the visuals vividly without the distraction, a true S&S fic. I do hope you continue.
I imagine if you continue you may have to change some things since Conan was usually solitary Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser might make a good splice for these two continuing... if you do, and I sincerely hope you do! I like the setting of pre-Equestria in the days of yore. I can hear Mako's voice as the Chronicler narrating this story.
I can just picture Princess Twilight Sparkle finding a particular scroll and reading the words:
"Know, O Princess, that between the years when the oceans drank Marelantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the Stallions of Areanas, there was an Age undreamed of, when shining Princessdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars---Nivernais, Onager, Byerley, Hipparchikos, Zecora with its black and white striped mares and towers of spider haunted mystery, Zarpa with its chivalry, Konik that bodered on the pasture lands of Shagya, Steinkraus with its shadow-guarded tombs, Holsteiner whose warriors wore steel and silk and gold. But the proudest kingdom of the world was Andalucia reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither came Celestia the Cimmareian, pink-maned, lavender-eyed, sword in hoof, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth to trot the jewled thrones of Equus under her iron shod hooves."
The quotation in the story description now makes me believe Twilight Sparkle was voice acted by Mako.
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Thanks! I like to imagine that the two take place in the same continuity, albeit two thousand years apart
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I'd heard of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser but never read it, so I'll definitely have to check that out for any subsequent tales I might tell. Thanks!
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Oh yes, I think this sort of setting is where my slightly purple prose is actually an asset.
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In his Aku voice or Uncle Iroh?
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*Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper!
Holly Conan that was great fun! I am a fan of barbarian Celestia.
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Akiro's voice was closer to Aku than Iroh, I think.
Hmm. What an odd approach.
This might need a crossover tag. Since it is effectively MLP and Conan the Barbarian fused together.
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Not really, it’s a pastiche, not a straight forward crossover.
this was quite good, i am glad i read it
For those playing at home, Conan did in fact eventually become a king.
Hmm. This isn't quite the first barbarian hero Celestia I've seen, but I liked this portrayal! The contrast between the modern, refined Celestia and the rowdy, blunt and quarrelsome one of the past was fun. My only complaint is that the ending seems a bit... abrupt, I suppose? I assume that this is a carryover from the story this is based on? I've never read a Conan story, so I assume this would seem more obvious to someone more familiar with them.
In any case, if you ever feel like using this setting again I'll be very interested in seeing the results.
Before I read this, I must know: How does she lose so much and make such horrible choices and command such a pathetic army and constantly rely on Twilight and her friends if she's the way she is in this story?
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Thanks for reading it! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I do think you're right about the ending, but many of the original Conan stories did have that tendency to end abruptly, so it's something for me to consider for later stories.
Muscle-bound mares kicking holes in doors and making stallions out of colts in the very best of pulpy style. What's not to like? An easy updoot.
This was an excellent story. I hope it is continued!
What a blast! I love myself some good warrior-barbarian Celestia, and setting it in a Conan-spoof was even more fun.
I am a little disappointed that it seemed to leave a few things hanging--I was hoping Redblood would have more narrative importance, especially given that he seems to be pretty clearly a Blueblood reference. I was also hoping for either some closure about Celestia's nature, or a breadcrumb to lead her forward. I was also hoping we'd get return to the present, maybe get a little scene with Luna, or maybe drunken Celestia scandalizing Twilight. Though it looks like this is meant to be a somewhat-faithful adaption to a Conan book and its structure, so fair enough!
...more?
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Glad you enjoyed it! I'll admit to rushing the ending a bit - perhaps I should have had a little epilogue, but I'd mainly wanted to write this as a start to a series. Hopefully, I'll get to writing more soon.
Six months later and I've finally read this. And damn, is worth it. I so want to read more on these two now, more of their tales in the Hyponian Age, their triumphs and failures, their rise to power and how the world was shaped from those contrived times to modern Equestria.
Or just some more Conlestia calling for Crom while Luna adorkables way with some inane day-to-day stuff, that would be awesome to.
Why didn't you respond to my comment? If you found it offensive, then I'm sorry, I'm sure this story is really good! It's just that for me the premise just doesn't match up with what we got in canon.
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It’s a little presumptuous to demand that I explain this story without having read it. Perhaps read it and find out.
That was a nice read. It was something else, but nowadays I'm hellbent on scraping up different Celestia backstory-fics, and reading them.
Gave you an upvote, you deserve it. Maybe sequel?
Okay just finished reading and this was absolutely stellar work across the board. I absolutely loved barbarian Celestia and scholar Luna. The Vizier was the absolute right amount of horrific and despite his short appearance was happy to see him be gone.
I love the dynamic hinted at between the sisters and can see how this goes to what matches in canon. Its such an enjoyable story and loved every word of it.
Thank you very much for the read ~!
and yes, Luna's dreamwalking and then Luna herself being what saves the day! really loved the story, Raleigh. the prose and atmosphere and worldbuilding were just so very well-done, and the pulpy fantasy plot was just so very enjoyable with this barbarian Celestia character at its head. could definitely read more of this from you, but as a standalone piece it is also more than satisfying. thank you for it!
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I just did. And I'm sorry, but... I still don't see it. What changed? Don't get me wrong, I liked the story, but how did things change so drastically?
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it what we call an alt universe. the change was the type of society ponydom had. aka the inclusion of crom. the land celly comes from ectra. the most major changes of course are the backstory of celly and luna. nothing more to really say on the matter. it's a fanfic not a exact re-creation of cannon