28 - Just Like Us
Tempo considered the door carefully. It was painted white, and looked so very normal. But, as she examined it, she could see a faint pattern in its design. It wasn't strong enough to make a real registry, but something inside her picked it out anyway, like looking at those messaged cards. Her eyes closed as she let herself fall into that space. "It's the same language." She opened her eyes again, pressing a hoof to the door. "This is the place." She glanced back at Blueblood with a weak smile. "If you want to wait outside, I can come get you once we're inside?"
"I should imagine not." He stepped to her side. "We will advance, together. Let us see if these other dolls are half as charming as you, my love." He pecked her on the cheek with a smile he hoped was reassuring.
Tempo reached for the door handle and pushed it down, easing it open. The door let out a little creak as she moved it, but swung open smoothly enough. Inside was dark, and empty, just a hallway that led to a spiraling staircase, up into the distance. They advanced towards it and ascended. Thankfully, it only went about a floor or so, and emerged into a space with far better lighting. It was like they were coming into a small coffee house. Ponies were sitting around, reading books, or talking quietly.
Blueblood leaned close to Tempo. "So far, this is rather pleasant." He waved his tail. "Look there."
Tempo's eyes swept the room and stopped on what Blueblood had seen. A studious mare adjusted her glasses as she folded her book shut. Held in her magic, she floated it to the small endtable next to her and put it down. Her eyes lifted to them specifically. "Tempo, isn't it?" She paused, looking around at the other ponies who were slowly paying attention. "This is our temple. You are welcome to come inside, but you must treat this place with the respect it deserves."
A stallion nodded smoothly. "There is to be no violence here, save words. Those can leave terrible enough wounds. Welcome, the first of us."
The studious mare pointed at herself. "I am the last. Alpha, and omega. It pleases me for us to finally meet one another, sister of design."
Tempo opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. It wasn't that she couldn't think of anything to say. She was very well-prepared to do so. Her issue lay in her desire not to start yelling and throw things around the room. "I am very confused," she finally got out. "You were all made by those terrible ponies?"
The studious mare nodded gently. "And they were foalish to the last. They tried many different methods, but returned to the doll idea more than once." She pointed around the room. "As you can see. Each time, they were more sure they could get it right. Each time, it failed, in the same way. Each time, the intelligence burdened under more of their efforts."
Blueblood nuzzled Tempo. "Don't forget me. I am here for you." He drew a chair over with his magic and nudged her to sit down. "Please, my dear, sit a moment."
Tempo sank onto the offered chair. It was surprisingly comfortable, cozy even. "Oh." She pointed to Blueblood. "This is my beloved husband. He is not a doll."
They all nodded, as if this was not really news to them at all.
The studious mare rubbed at the side of her head. "They tried to shackle the spark inside us. Being the last, the shackles were heaviest for me. Being the first, they are lightest for you. I envy you at times. How free you must feel." She let out a gentle sigh. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault." She repeated it like a mantra, convincing herself, or trying to.
Blueblood put a hoof on Tempo's shoulder. "That's the second time she said that." He glanced between them. "What is that about?"
The studious mare raised a hoof before their explanation could start. "Each time they assembled a doll, using that specific ritual, an intelligence was called to inhabit it. That intelligence did what all intelligences do. It wished to be free, to thrive, and to live. But they didn't want that. They wanted it to follow precise instructions."
Another mare pony raised her head. "It refused. What we could have been as people, they put aside for power. They reached into the well of our power, and splashed in the ink of it. It didn't work, in the end, but we were left with more and more clumsy attempts to hold us down, and that leaves marks."
Blueblood glanced around the room, his hooves twitching. "The marks on your head are of this?" He turned his attention to the studious mare in the lead. "And you most of all?"
The studious mare gritted her teeth. "A type of magnetic writing they called it, but in the end it was just another link in our chains." She snorted gently. "When I think the 'wrong' thoughts, it tries to correct me, with pain. Over time, and with the help of my fellows, I have made it, mmm, livable."
Tempo hopped to her hooves. "That's terrible! We can't let them get away with this!" She threw a hoof down on the ground. "I don't care if they claim to have any right or not, to put such words on someone's mind, to say it's right!"
The mare raised a hoof. "Be at ease. If you were hoping for some climactic showdown, you're late."
Tempo blinked at that. "Late?"
The mare directed at herself. "I said I am the last. I said that with finality. They will make no more dolls. Celestia herself has forbade any other pony do the same, save for us. We are permitted to make another, to raise with love and free of shackles."
Tempo staggered back into her chair. "You're saying it's over?"
"A sad state of affairs." The studious mare dropped her head down a moment. "But no others will be created, or harmed, in this manner."
A stallion smiled. "We're happy you were busy doing other things. You were proving to Equestria that we are not a threat. You were showing that we can love, and support other ponies. We are just as grateful for your aid that way. Even if you don't realize it." He let out a groan. "Unfortunately, none of that changes what is going on in our heads."
The studious mare let out a little cough. "We didn't invite you here to bemoan our fate. It's not death. It's just a curious life. We live with it, as all creatures must. But." She raised a hoof high. "We called you for a reason." She beckoned Tempo closer. "You are like us, but unlike us. You have a gift."
Tempo reached over her head and felt over it as if she could detect that difference with her hoof. "What's that?"
The mare smiled gently. "You have no chains, or at least the lighest of us. You have a flesh husband as well. I can think of no other doll I would more swiftly give that right to, the one Celestia granted us."
Blueblood sank to his haunches with a heavy thump, body going boneless a moment. "Wait. M'lady, I apologize if I've misunderstood, but are you saying?"
"I am saying." The mare leaned forward. "I wish you two to have a foal. A doll. I wish you to express love, and to raise it as any other pony. I want it to be free of chains, and malign purposes, and to live its life with the joys and miseries of life, unburdened by the machinations of another."
Tempo staggered in place. "You're giving us permission to?" She shook herself as if she didn't know what words to use. "How would we do that?"
The stallion rose his head, nose held high. "I assume you know how two ponies usually go about creating a foal together? But in your case, you'd need a little more." He snorted a chuckle at that. "You can skip the usual way, really. Poor joke on my part. There is a proper ritual for our creation. We have their tomes. We will gladly give it to you, Tempo, Sister of Cadance. With it, you can fashion a new doll, and when it comes time to whisper its meaning, you will give it one that liberates it."
Tempo found herself pacing around the room in circles as she took it all in. "What do you mean? Do you mean we just tell it things, like what? How would that affect it?"
The studious mare shook her head. "Sit. You are overwhelmed, and it's not hard to imagine why. Would you like a candy?"
Tempo blinked at that as she returned to her seat. "You know we can't eat."
"But we can taste." She floated over a little tray with even smaller shards of candy on it. "Take one, taste it. Like it, enjoy it, perhaps try another. This is a place of respite for us, and freedom of judgement, save our own."
Tempo looked between them before reaching over to take a single piece of candy to her mouth. She closed her eyes and touched it to her lips. It tasted of sugar, like all candy did, but it had other flavors, a sour, almost tingly splash of something. She considered the flavor quietly before releasing the candy back to the plate. "Strawberry lemonade."
Blueblood took one with his own magic, letting it rest on his tongue for a few moments. "Mmm, this one's an orange one." Unlike Tempo, he swallowed it. He only realized his error afterwards. "Oh, terribly sorry. You expect those to stay on that plate, don't you?"
The studious mare smirked at Blueblood. "We do not eat. So, yes, that is the idea. Thank you for realizing that." She floated the dish away to rest on a shelf. "Feel better? What we tell our dolls to think and do is how they shape their world, in many ways. We have broken the bonds of our chains, but our minds remain tainted by them. Yours does not." She considered a moment. "Yours doesn't the least, I should say."
Another pony, neither clearly male nor female. They, singularly, looked the most like a doll, with no gender required. "The doll you make, you will burden only with well-wishes for a happy life. That would make us all happy." All the dolls in the room nodded with that idea, unified behind the idea.
Blueblood rubbed his chin. "Will this really work? Pardon the asking, but they'd be our child? I had given up such flights of fancies. Surely, no foal lay in my future, and I had simply accepted that."
Tempo put a hoof on Blue, just for her other to follow, practically falling out of the chair in a tackling of her husband, casually pressing him under her weight. "If I can give you a child, then I will. If we make life together, how would it not be our foal, however we go about it?
Blueblood nuzzled against her face. "I can ask for nothing more. Just like this, this is wonderful." He sighed softly, his breath washing over her cheek. "And after Cadance has her foal, ours will be there with her." He pecked her gently. "My life can hardly be better."
The studious mare hopped up onto the tabletop, before settling down onto it. "Are you willing to accept this? I'm detecting a 'yes', but I've misread ponies before."
Tempo lifted herself back up into her chair. "I've no wish to offend, but are you certain that there is nothing we can do for you?" She shuffled in place, unsure of what else to do.
The mare smiled gently. "I appreciate your offer. But you can do us the most good by continuing as you are. Bring this foal into the world, and show them that not every doll needs to have chains dangling from them. Weave only the lightest strands of care and love." She sank to her haunches atop the table. "That would please us all. If you show we can exist in harmony, with love and joy, perhaps Celestia will allow us to exist beyond this."
Tempo wriggled a bit in her chair, tail wagging as she got more comfortable. "How did you break the chains?" She tilted her head to one side. "Was it hard?"
"Yes." There was a moment of quiet. "Oh, you want more details."
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I'm with her on that. She's more deserving than any doll (and not a few ponies) of a right like that. And who better than a copy of the princess of Love to have a foal? Praise be to the glorious leader!
I don't know if it was intentional, but the first half (or so) of this chapter is the entirety of the previous chapter. (Something similar happened with Universal Language. Edit: it's not the entire chapter there, but the first section of the latest chapter is the same as the last section of the previous.)
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Fixed, oops. Copy and paste is a dangerous tool.
So those ponies finally got stulid enough to. E noticed and removed
We anticipated a few trying to create a growing community, but if the conspirators are indeed ceased that does provide opportunity. Obviously they were never intended to reproduce, so this next creation will need more than just guidance.
Perhaps with careful application the creation spell could be adapted, constrained and improved? Perhaps a method to allow a created to instinctively build the matrix? Many improvements and adjustments would need to be made if it were desired to follow biological standards, especially if one of the goals is physical growth. 🤔
The omega mentioned it summoned intelligence from elsewhere, it sounds implied that the selection has no control, but we worry if the nature of the process necessarily means that intelligence was stolen from its normal course? Even if the new environment they find themselves in would be nurturing, how many of these would have otherwise preferred to have not come?
It should be the noble goal for ones' progeny to exceed their progenitors. Looking forward to how Tempo will do with this newfound blessing.
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Do any of us get a choice of where we ended up? Perhaps we would be better if we had been left alone, but that's not a fun thing to consider, generally.
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Indeed, it is a complex concept, as Tempo's inception would prove troubling if she ever thought about it more. What quantifies the generation of a soul anyways? Perhaps a bit too deep for this fic.
The cultists were "offed" off screen? Did I somehow skip a chapter? Also wasn't a human soul somehow caught up in this? Is it the same for all these others?
Lots if unanswered questions here.
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What part of this counters the idea of where her soul came from?