Chapter 7: Toroidal Heresy
I'm going to miss doing that to Stocky...
Anyhow, a bit more about me. I'm a mare of two hats, and those hats happen to say something about me. There's my garish pointed wizard's cap that I like to wear in private sometimes, and then there's my white chef's toque that I wear whenever I'm cooking.
Wearing my wizard's hat, I get to feel powerful and mysterious. Like some archmage ready to confound and destroy any fool foolish enough to challenge me. Maybe I'd turn Pierce into a newt. Lanthanum knows turning him into a wild boar wouldn't impress anypony.
When I wear that hat, I can feel like a paragon of unicornkind. Somepony who could lift a giant boulder before it could fall on a class of foals on a field trip. Somepony who could wow her audience with feats of awesome magic they would talk about for days to come. When I wear that hat, I can feel like somepony meant to be adored by all of Unicornia.
In my wizard's hat, I can pretend I'm somepony I'm not.
I'm no archmage with the fabric of reality quivering to heed my will. I'm just an average unicorn with an average grasp of magic. I've got your basic cantrips like levitation, and I have a few cooking spells I'm pretty good with, but it's nothing I'd perform on a stage.
Okay, maybe I'm not entirely average. Kinda hard to be when you're a fluffy, eccentric unicorn who caters to royalty and has a taste for drama and saffron. I'd be hard-pressed to say my life has been boring, at least.
I have to say, my chef's toque fits me a lot better. Apart from the magic, elegance, grace, and beauty that define unicornkind (with some notable exceptions), that white hat is tied to nearly everything I am.
This hat is my adventure hat. It is my hat of science! It's the hat of my family, and not just because my dad had it made for me. I guess it doesn't have much to do with Sepia Tone, but isn't a painter kinda like a chef with a bit more permanence in his work?
My chef's toque is the hat I wear when I set off to explore the frontiers of flavor. It's the hat I use to think the chef-y, foodish thoughts that move my work forward. When I'm in this hat, I'm either going to create something or die trying. Or get banished, I guess, but what can you do?
Exploring... Maybe I could think of this whole banishment thing as a chance to expand my horizons. That mudpony book had a lot of interesting exotic ingredients like potatoes and peanuts. I wonder if anything tasty grows in the desert? Those pegasi have to be eating something, right? Maybe if I can convince them to let me cook for them, they'll eat my food instead of eating me... I'd better pack some salt and herbs.
Maybe I'll get the chance to wear my favorite hat in the desert after all. Into the bag with you, my hat of adventure!
Think I'll wear my wizard's cap to my banishment, though. Far more memorable to banish a dangerous, mysterious heretic in a garish, pointed hat than to banish some mostly harmless loon in the garb of her profession, and I do love to give ponies a show...
Not to mention that the brim should be wide enough to shield my face from the desert sun.
That brings me, of course, to how I actually ended up getting myself banished from Unicornia to said desert to be Demonwing fodder. I'm just about packed, so there's not much sense delaying that bit of my story any longer.
You are about to behold the instrument of my destruction. It was of my own make, and it was delicious.
I present to you the ultimate fruit of my recent labors, and maybe even my crowning achievement as a chef. A pastry fluffy enough to rival my own coat, sweet enough to put a bee into a diabetic coma, and so light that it shall rise with me to take Unicornia by storm when I return from exile. Behold: the honey-glazed donut! All shall love them and despair!
Yes, there's a possibility this won't be my last ever day in Unicornia, but I don't want to get ahead of myself trying to explain that just yet.
Remember how I said frying up a pastry could turn out well? I was right, but it took a bit of doing. I could cook a ball of lightly spiced dough in hot oil, but if it was any bigger around than my horn it wouldn't cook right. I'd either get a charred shell with a reasonable center, or a delightfully crisp exterior that was still raw dough on the inside.
I solved that problem by putting that hole in the middle so it'd have more surface area exposed directly to the hot grease and cook a little more evenly. The decision to put a hole through the pastry went a little like this:
"Refuse to cook right, will you? Form a blackened crust around an ice-cold center, will you?! Dare to mock me by being inches from perfection and yet infinitely far from it at the same time, WILL YOU?!
"Maybe you'll be a bit more agreeable once I run you through with my horn and toss you into the cauldron of burning death! RAAAAAAAHRGH!"
And so it was.
I'll have you know, by the way, that all subsequent donut holes were cut out with perfectly sanitary cookie cutters instead of being gouged out on my very nearly as sanitary horn.
Anyhow, I had this holey revelation just in time to showcase this food (and sundry others I'd dreamt up since discovering frying) in a glorious feast!
The feast may not have been in my food's honor, but this was really the next best thing. The Unicornia Day Pageant is hardly a low-profile event in any case, and the one in the Platinum Theatre in the Royal Palace is easily the biggest and most prestigious. Everypony who was anypony was going to be there, and I was going to be catering to them all.
Yup. No possible way that could have backfired...
The play was pretty good this year. Princess Topaz had wanted to go all out this time, so she had the high magi and the royal jewelers work with the finest fashion designers in all Unicornia to get the costumes just perfect.
Rather than relying on cheap dyes, giant hats, and cumbersome props to look like members of the lesser pony races, they embedded gems with special enchantments in the costumes. The enchantments acted kinda like the ones royal guard uniforms use to keep the royal guards looking more, well, uniform, but they were a bit higher power. Instead of just adjusting coat, mane, and eye color, these enchantments would alter many aspects of the wearer's physique. This meant they had to constantly drain power from the wearer to keep the illusions going, but I think the effect was worth it.
We had mud ponies who were built like houses, if your house was a sturdy, squatting, sprawling apartment complex. If those weren't illusions, I'd pay good money to see Pierce fail to flip one of them in a wrestling ring. All of that bulk and muscle capped off by a pair of greedy, beady little eyes and a wild mass of mane, just like a classic storybook thug. I actually had trouble telling the mud pony mares from the stallions, but the differences were there if I looked hard enough.
As big and impressive as our mud ponies looked, I can't say they looked truly frightening. Big and strong, yes, but stupid and lumbering too. They'd probably go down to a few shot puts, spike barrages, flechette clouds, strategic sword slashes, and maybe a few creatively placed boulders for good measure. The pegasi, though, looked like any one of them could dash up to me and bite off my horn before I could lift a pan in self-defense.
The pegasi in the play have been giving me nightmares. It doesn't help that I could be seeing real pegasi as early as later this morning, either. Their coat colors were dark, but desaturated. Sickly grays, blues, some greens, and the occasional faded bloody red gave me the feeling that they weren't overly fond of Lanthanum's sacred sun. Their slitted bright green, yellow, or red eyes added to that impression, too. Why'd they choose to live in the desert, anyway? Was it the cold desert nights?
Then there were the fangs. Oh sweet mercy, the fangs! These weren't the nice pointy teeth that help your average stallion healthily tear into a chunk of meat. I'm talking about a mouthful of dripping blades and needles clearly meant to tear bleeding chunks from a living victim.
I'm shivering just thinking back on it.
The way the "pegasus" actors would sneakily skulk shadow-to-shadow had to take tons of practice, too. It really added to the impression that these catlike predators of the night were always just a twitch away from stealing your saddlebags, taking your life, or ravishing some unsuspecting mare.
The most impressive part of any of the illusory costumes, though, were the pegasus wings. They were hairless, membranous things a shade darker and more pallid than the rest of the coat.
They weren't static, either; those things would move! The actors couldn't use them to fly, since they were illusions, but what they could do was amazing. The actors could actually emote through their wings, and I could somehow understand them. They'd bring their wings up and forward like they were getting ready for takeoff whenever they bristled, their wings would flare out whenever they were surprised or alarmed, their wings would clamp to their sides when they were trying to look calm and controlled, their wings would pop up in a shrug when they were unsure, and their wings would even fidget when they were nervous.
Apparently this was all possible because the high magi made their wing illusions tap into normally dormant parts of the ponies' brains that would control wings in a pegasus. I'd heard some whispers that they were looking into putting together a spell to give a unicorn flight-capable wings, too, which I guess is pretty nifty.
And of course, there wasn't a horn in sight among the mud ponies or the pegasi. Not even a nub or a flicker. I bet the princess was proud.
I know all that technical stuff because Outta Stock got to serve a lot of the high muckity-mucks working on the pageant, and apparently they just would not. Shut. Up about it. They'd just go on and on about their pet project in the play until Stocky wished his ears would fall off.
Unfortunately for me, Stocky is an avid advocate for "show, don't tell" in storytelling. Sometimes that stallion makes me wish I had a talent for transfiguration so I could learn a zipperlips spell.
Enough for now about the impressive special effects. Onwards to ponies enjoying the play and, more importantly, the feast I'd prepared.
The narrator is a pretty underappreciated role in the pageant. Most ponies seem to think you just need to be loud and clear so any old town crier could snap it up. The problem is, town criers are noticeable. A great narrator, instead of drawing your attention to himself, lives to focus your attention on the story, subtly bridging gaps between events. They set the stage and fade into the background, like the servants bringing in the next course of a meal, you hardly notice the great ones at all. We had a great narrator this year.
"Long, long ago, in the ancient homeland of our fathers, there lived three races of ponies," his voice rumbled into the darkened theater.
"There were the earth ponies," he intoned as a spotlight flared, illuminating a rather filthy mud pony couple. "Great of frame, yet small of heart. They had a gift for farming we can only match today thanks to the ingenuity of our ancestors."
Cue some subdued murmuring from the few farmers in the crowd.
"Then there were the pegasi." Another spotlight lit up a pair of pegasi with vicious fangs and cunning eyes, making them hiss and cringe at the light. "They were a brutal and deadly race of warriors. Proud of their combat prowess and their control over weather," he finished as a lightning strike silhouetted them.
"Greatest of all, of course, were we: The glorious unicorns of the old kingdom!" The central spotlight came to life, showing a pair of nearly regal-looking unicorns in old-fashioned livery. "As the holy stewards of the Sun and the Moon and of magic unmatched, it was our destiny to rule and reign.
"This story," he half-whispered as the spotlights faded to black, "the story of how Unicornia came to be, began on the summit of our ancient mountain home of Heaven's Embrace."
Scene change, and now some of the theater's hungrier or more curious patrons made a dash for the food I had waiting in the wings. I was still paying most of my attention to the pageant after the break, but I couldn't help but notice the warm reception my fried goods were getting.
After the short break, the pageant began to get into swing.
"The Old Kingdom was governed much like ours is today. King Chromium would call upon his subjects at dawn and dusk to assist in swapping the celestial spheres. Even so, raising the sun and moon is an immensely draining task, so he would delegate most of his political duties to his beloved daughter Princess Platinum, and to her Council of Graybeards."
One of the secondary purposes of the Unicornia Day pageant is to help educate foals about history and government. Some would say the pageant tries to teach them big words, too, but I suspect those ponies need to expand their horizons a bit. Kinda wish it would teach more science and magic though.
Even in the high-class crowd I was running in, there were plenty of children in attendance. We pretty palace ponies have families too, you know, and going to the pageant was one of the highpoints of a foal's year. Naturally, Just about everypony working in the palace brought their families there to watch. Rest of my family couldn't make it to this year's pageant at the palace, as they were all watching the one put on by Sepia Tone's school. He'd had a pretty big horn in painting the sets this year, I heard tell. Oh, why couldn't I have gone to that one instead?
Kinda got sidetracked there. Let's get back to the pageant.
"Not all was well in Heaven's Embrace, however," the narrator continued.
"Milady," a breathless unicorn courier said as he slammed the door open, "the pegasi are revolting!"
"What else is new?" the jester countered, "I've always found pegasi revolting."
"Silence, foal!" Platinum rebuked with a swift scepter to the noggin. "Please continue, courier. This sounds to be grave news indeed."
"Grave news it is forsooth, your highness, for an ill wind has begun to blow across the land. An ill wind, and a chill one too. Not only have the pegasi refused to pay us their homage this season, they seem determined that this season shouldn't happen at all!
"It has become unnaturally cold in our borderland towns, complete with snow and ice. These unseasonable blizzards are being contained for now, but they continue to grow in strength by the day. At this rate, I doubt that even the finest meteomancers in the kingdom would be able to hold these storms back for long."
"That is dire news. Praytell, what could have driven those brutes to such a fiendish display?!"
"I know that not, my princess. The pegasi have, however, issued some demands to be fulfilled before they will correct this weather.
"First, they demand a greater share of the food the earth ponies grow."
What would a needle-mouthed pegasus do with mud pony vegetables, anyhow? I can only hope that means the show's special effects were a bit overblown and I won't be staring down any such devouring maws in my near future.
"That does sound doable. I'm sure we could impress the earth ponies with the importance of showing kindness to their pegasus brethren."
"Second, they demand that we establish and celebrate annually a 'National Kiss a Pegasus Day'?"
The ever-intriguing sound of disgusted laughter bubbled up through the audience.
I've got to hoof it to Platinum's actress: she was able to convey a look of horrified yet uncomfortably restrained revulsion all the way up to the balcony seats.
"Well– I, uh, perhaps they could be convinced to settle for something a little more tame. Like a Pegasus Appreciation Day. We could have a day for each of the three tribes, even. Were there any other demands brought to the table?"
"The third demand was an annual tribute of ten thousand crowns' worth of, and I quote, 'whatever gems, shiny baubles, and magical doohickeys you boneheads use in your spooky magics.'"
At that, Princess Platinum went livid. Her coat went from an alluring gray to a deathly bleached-bone white.
Ah, the countenance of a pony who's just gone from uncomfortably indulging the whims of the mad, to seething with barely-contained outrage when the mad one pushes things a few steps too far. With a bit of horrified shock thrown in for good measure. I've grown intimately familiar with that look over the last few days.
Thankfully for the Princess, the Jester chose that moment to step in so she could compose herself. Outta Stock really would have made a great jester in whatever hypothetical empire I could have set up. Always able to speak his mind, never fearing to make a fool of himself in the name of telling ponies what they need to hear. And he could pass it all off as a comedy routine if things went south.
Oh gouge it, I'm getting sidetracked again! Back to the Jester. The one in the play.
"Why bother negotiating at all?" he chimed in. "If I were in charge, I'd just charge in with our armies and give them all what for! Forget giving them what they want until they just want peace, I say!"
"Art thou mad?!" Platinum shrieked, delivering another blow to his thick skull. "If nothing else, the pegasi are a nation of mighty warriors. Any such direct assault would be suicide!"
She took a few deep breaths before she continued, visibly calmer. "Nay, though it paineth me to say it, we must... negotiate with these devils of the air. We cannot allow our subjects to freeze to death, and our pride can only keep us so warm.
"Courier, take a letter!"
"And thus the Summit of Three Tribes was called, for the first and only time," the Narrator droned ominously to close the scene as the stage lights dimmed.
Another brief break for them to change scenes. As good as the stagehorns at this theater are, it takes even them a few minutes to tear down and set up sets this elaborate. This gave the ponies curious about the snacks their neighbors were finding so much more engrossing than the pageant itself a chance to see what all the fuss was about. My donuts in particular were becoming popular.
"The summit was attended by leaders from each of the three tribes," the narrator supplied.
"Chancellor Puddinghead of the earth ponies." A large, muscular, grease-colored mare stomped onto the scene and chuffed. "A pony with a skull as hard as the Earth's crust, and twice as thick.
"Commander Hurricane of the pegasi." A thundercloud-maned stallion with a coat of sable slinked from the shadows to the negotiating table. "Renowned for his cunning and prowess in battle; feared for the fury that earned him his name."
Call me a skeptic, but Commander Hurricane just didn't sound like a skulky enough name for a pegasus. Maybe pegasi liked ironic names? Sounded fierce enough, though, I guess, so I let this one slide.
"And of course, the ever-radiant Princess Platinum!" The crowd erupted in cheers as the light gray mare with the white-gold mane from the previous scene strode onto the stage. "Beautiful as the dawn, unyielding as the mountain she stood on, and incorruptible as the metal of her namesake."
As is the fashion among higher-budget theaters, Princess Platinum was portrayed as a slightly idealized version of Princess Topaz. Take that as you will. Speaking of princesses, somepony had brought Princess Topaz a plate full of my honey-glazed donuts, and she had been munching on them merrily.
"I, Platinum, high princess of the Unicorns and emissary to the three tribes, do formally call this summit to order. It has come to my attention," she announced as she floated some gold wire-rimmed glasses onto her face to read the agenda she was holding, "that there has been a significant amount of unseasonably inclement weather around our border towns, particularly the ones with more regular pegasus contact."
Commander Hurricane looked about ready to rip her throat out at that last statement. Then again, that more-or-less seemed to be his default mood.
"Namely, they are being buried by blizzards harsher than we have seen in the depths of any winter," she continued. "If there is anything the pegasi could do to alleviate this grievous burden, we would be willing to show our appreciation."
"Yeah. We earth ponies are having a hard time too, with all that snow covering our towns. You pegasusseses need to stop making it snow already so we can go back to work!" thundered an irate Puddinghead.
"I guess it would be kinda hard to wallow when your mud holes are all frozen solid," Hurricane chuckled with a needle-filled grin.
What should have been booming laughter at well-storied mud pony foolishness turned out instead to be a trickle of guffaws. Turns out something as mundane as an annual pageant with amazing special effects that they'd paid a hoof and a horn to see just couldn't hold a candle to some simple pastries I'd fried up.
The aisles had filled with lines of ponies queuing up to receive additional donuts and other sundries. The first major influx happened when ponies noticed their princess had ordered a plate of them for herself, and were imitating her for status points. Then they noticed how amazing the donuts tasted, and went back for seconds. And thirds. With that sweet, slightly crunchy shell of semi-crystallized honey wrapped around that warm, moist, fluffy goodness, who could blame them?
By all rights, this night should have catapulted my name into every unicorn's mouth, followed shortly thereafter by a freshly fried donut. Unicorns had been eating the same bland, uninspired dishes, hearing the same bland, uninspired music, and living the same bland, uninspired lives for centuries! The unicorns in the audience that night seemed to be waking up from that centuries-long stagnation just a little.
Maybe this new, previously unimagined food could have inspired others to "take off in a new direction" and form novel ideas. Maybe that night could have been the beginning of a reneighssance!
Now, though? Instead of my name being in everypony's mouths, they just spit it out like bad mead. I'd never noticed until recently how much of a hiss you could tack onto the word "Spice."
I didn't pay much attention to the pageant after that point. Once my attention was pulled from the actors to the audience by their deafening lack of raucous laughter, the actors couldn't be bothered to take it back. I guess it didn't help that I'd seen versions of this same play about twenty times already.
There were hundreds of ponies here, actively enjoying my art. A true artist of any sort knows that to be one of the most enrapturing feelings one can experience, so I think I can excuse my lapse of attention.
As for the rest of that scene, it unfolded fairly predictably. Some issues were raised, some insults were traded, the earth pony was a stupid brute, the pegasus was a lecherous predator out for conquest, and Princess Platinum was the most regal thing imaginable in her circumstance. Then Princess Platinum vowed to stake out a new home far away from the lesser races, followed by the major intermission that marked the end of Act I.
Then, something unexpected, but not at all unwelcome, happened.
"Fillies and Gentlecolts!" announced Princess Topaz, "I would like to publicly
acknowledge the mare that has so obviously stolen the show this evening."
I hadn't quite caught on at this point, so I was wondering whether she was going to commend the actress playing Princess Platinum or the leader of the special effects team. The pony she's talking about in one of these is usually at least within shouting distance, so maybe if I looked closely I could find—
“Would the Royal Chef, Miss Amber Spice, please join me in my box seat straight away!”
I was dumbstruck for a second there. Thankfully, years of living in the Palace had taught my legs to proceed briskly to the Princess whenever she called for me, so I didn't have to waste time composing myself before I got moving. That was a good thing, since the Princess didn't wait for me to arrive before she continued talking.
“The Royal Chef has always been a bit of an odd one.” She paused a little to allow for some polite chuckling among the audience.
“It is how she has been promoted so quickly, really. I had long since tired of eating my daily bread the same way, day-in and day-out. Then Amber Spice came to work in the palace kitchens, and she was strange. She would do things with food that were simply unheard of. She would combine strange flavors, and they would meld beautifully or stand out vibrantly. She is a pony willing to take risks, and I dare say those risks have paid off,” she said as she gestured expansively at the spread of fried foods.
“So tell us,” she said, turning to me as I walked up to her side, “what is the secret behind your latest and greatest batch of wonders?”
Now I'm not normally one for public speaking, but I do have a flair for the dramatic.
“My secret, eh?” I said as I sashayed to the front of the box. “The secret to making these delicacies had to brew in my brain for a number of weeks. The seed of my inspiration was planted while I sojourned in the cold dark depths of the Royal Archives. In there, I found an ancient book of wisdom titled Ancient Earth Pony Customs and Culture. It contained forgotten culinary secrets and... oh dear.”
The whole theater had gone deathly silent. If a pony were were to breathe heavily, I would have heard it. Speaking of which, there was a significant source of heavy breathing right behind me.
I turned around to see the princess who not two minutes ago had been touting me as the best chef since Sliced Bread with color drained, nostrils flaring, and mouth very nearly foaming.
Horse apples, I was such a numbskull.
That flair for the dramatic seems to also include a flair dramatically stepping my hoof right into it. Let's review the name of that book that seemed to upset my dear princess so much.
Ancient Earth Pony Customs and Culture.
Ancient Earth Pony Customs and Culture.
Earth Pony.
Mud Pony.
How under Lanthanum's golden sun did that not register until that very moment? Why did I just have to flap my gums before my brain could catch up with them to tell them it was a bad idea. Sure, everypony usually just calls them mud ponies whenever they're not going for historical vernacular, but this really is something I should have realized a lot sooner. Like before it got my rump ejected from my homeland. I'm still kicking myself right now, in case you couldn't tell.
Anyhow, back to the bleached-bone-livid princess. I guess Platinum's actress got this part of her radiance right as well.
“I can't believe this, you– you traitor! You have brought to my royal lips fodder meant for vulgar horses, and bewitched it to taste like food! The thought of such impropriety. It makes me so ill that I could just—”
Then she did it. The most sickening, unprincesslike thing you could ever do to a chef: She noisily emptied her stomach onto my hooves.
In front of the entire theater.
Seeing their cue, the nobility then magically yanked on their own uvulae for a breathtaking display of synchronized purging. I don't know how long it'll take them to scrub all that vomit out of the theater, but I'm guessing something on the order of months.
I just have one thing to say about all that: Worst. Pageant. Ever.
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It's not dead! Fantastic!
Okay, now I am utterly perplexed. With the pageant, the scale of the fic seems to have widened. The question is: Is this fic going to expand to accommodate that?
In my opinion, it would be a real shame if this just ended with Amber's banishment. I know you might not want to undergo Cerberus Syndrome, but I think it would be freaking awesome if this fic forms an alternate unification of the three tribes.
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Shh! you're going to spoil my plans for the sequels!
This is beautiful. I really do hope that it gets more attention, as well as more frequent updates!
*squee* It's still going!
Heh, I kinda figured that she'd be banished for something silly like this... Can't say I saw the mass vomiting coming though.
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Ironically, my being back in school probably means more time to work on this, Therefore, more frequent updating is more likely. There may be only one chapter left in this fic, but There should be a sequel out on its heels.
3215303
That's the beauty of it. NOPONY sees the mass vomiting coming until it's already hit them!
Glad to see you saw the silly banishment coming. I remember foreshadowing it as far back as chapter 3, but I wasn't sure if i'd hinted hard enough.
Dounts!
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img703.imageshack.us/img703/4389/altk.jpg
More Tastes Like Heresy! What joy!
Fascinating alternate take on the Hearth's Warming pageant. A shame the doughnuts were so delicious that we never find out what kept the tribes from unifying. Though I do like how "unyielding as the mountain she stood on" is apparently so much better than "a skull as hard as the Earth's crust, and twice as thick" when they're basically the same simile.
I have to wonder how the other ponies characterize the unicorns. No doubt they exaggerate horn size, but I can imagine both sallow, frail creatures twisted by their darque majykks and bloated, dissipated aristocrats who would flail about as helplessly as salted slugs were it not for their petty cantrips. I also wonder if their characterizations of one another differ from the unicorns'.
In any case, definitely looking forward to more, especially once Amber is banished and can get to the really world-buildy parts of the story.
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For one thing, unicorns in my headcanon have a soft spot for mountains. Also, everyone knows that stubbornness is a virtue when you're in the right, and this was Princess Platinum arguing against a mud pony and a horse fly. How much more one-sided does it get?
As for how other races view unicorns? I can't let myself tell you everything just yet, but here are some basics: Pegasi think of them as honorless cheaters and wimps, while earth ponies think of them as unnatural, uncanny, twisted, and downright creepy. Or at least really mysterious. Also, pegasus lore may have become considerably... scattered and divergent in the last few centuries, so there might be some arguments as to which "mythological creature" Spicy is.
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"She's a unicorn!"
"No, she's a jabberwock!"
"She's a heffalump or I'm a flutter pony!"
Oh, this is going to be good...
It is the eyelashes isn't it?
Wait a minute... Ogling the "lesser" races? For shame Amber! Does your impropriety and perversion know no bounds?
Better double them all up just in case.
And maybe have some extra spells as back up. Just in case...
And use fire as well. Fire solves everything. If it does not solve the problem, you are not using enough of it.
In fact, it is probably safer to stay at the top of the mountain and rain down a destruction mega-spell or ten on the hulking and powerful and totally-not-scary earth ponies. It really is the only way to be sure.
Me? Scared? No siree! I am totally not frightened of the freakishly strong, tough, and over muscled brick outhouse ponies!
Please don't hurt me!
Shut up and take my bits!
Good thing the unicorns are merely snobbish and aloof. If the unicorns had a mischievously cruel streak, the pegasi would have soon found themselves with twenty thousand crowns of booby-trapped "magical doohickeys" that afflict them with singing, rainbow coloured flatulence.
Doh!
I had a brief flicker of suspicion when Amber started describing the "degenerate" earth ponies.
Heresy... Cooking... Earth ponies... Recipe... What was the name of that new cookbook Amber found again?
Just wait until Amber reveals that she fried the doughnuts in castor oil (cheap and readily available from Outta Stock's commissary).
Forget the Platinum Throne. All the nobles present at the pageant will be desperately fighting to secure a seat the porcelain throne!
That was a fun chapter. Looking forward to more.
I did find a few places where the sentence capitalisation was off:
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Achievement unlocked: get someone to say "Shut up and take my bits!" Between that and seeing how my foreshadowing worked exactly as intended, your post just made my day.
As for the errors:
I blame the first two on the uploading script, whether it was its fault or not. It has done stranger things... Third one was a legit error on my part, and 4th was a deliberate style choice that people don't seem to like. I'll probably end up fixing all of those, so thanks for pointing them out!
my reaction >
Great Chapter Bugsydor! not how I expected that to end.
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Praytell, how didst thou expect it to end?
This story has been reviewed by: The Equestrian Critics Society
Story Title: Tastes Like Heresy
Author: Bugsydor
Reviewed by: Shahrazad
Tastes Like Heresy is a fun slice of life story. It’s an alternate universe, and while many elements are familiar, all of the characters are original. This is the story’s strong point, that is, the characters. Original and relatable, even the rough spots on these characters are endearing. Don’t shy away from the OC tag here, they’re all well rounded.
The alternative universe isn’t dumped via exposition, instead it’s slowly revealed. The universe itself is well put together, making for a fascinating read. The story is a prequel, but the world building is worth your time, if that’s your thing.
The dialog is excellent. The wit of some of the characters is sharp enough to cut bread. There’s even a few points where two characters can get a laugh with just their repartee. Just don’t come into it expecting a high tension drama, as the pacing is on the slow side. Instead, pour yourself a beer, preferably an “Amber Draft,” and enjoy.
Full Review (spoilers)
Score: 7.5/10
Evil unicorns.
Thank goodness King Haggard shows up and has the Red Bull drive them all into the sea! Dat's wut dey git fer disparigin' our vittles!
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Well dang. I guess that would make Spicy... the Last Unicorn.