Interlude Two: Last and First Mares
Interlude Two
Last and First Mares
You know when civilization began? With the invention of the mirror.
-Shimon Peres
+ + +
Canterlot Royal Palace, South Annex
Unfurled Scroll Memorial Library, Crocus Wing, Third Floor Dormitory Reading Room
12:15 PM, 5th day of the Month of the Lyre (June)
31st Year of the Restored Sisters, Full Measure; 7 Cockatrice 93 Fetlock, Adjusted (Conversion N/A)
(full size here)
He'd only brought it on himself, he recalled.
Another sharp burp of deep cracking sounds echoed across the courtyard, as if somepony were being careless with some very beefy firecrackers. None of the students even flinched; they'd all become used to it by now.
No, he had only himself to blame. Princess Luna had teased him in a letter that if he didn't return to the palace soon, she was going to rent out his dedicated quarters to some craftsponies. And so she had, if only temporarily. Though he'd soon have access to his files and equipment again, it would no doubt take months, and all of his rations of public incense, before the room was finally cleansed of whatever acrid chemicals and molds those cheesemakers were constantly using. Spells were too literal to ever get it all.
In the ornately tiled courtyard below, a Royal Guard with a face like steel wool had been drilling a small team of yellow-helmeted watchponies in the use of the elaborate, nominally ceremonial cannons that ringed the city. The unfortunate unicorn trainee who'd acted as the target was struggling to free himself from a heavy, tangled net, his magic and hooves pulling at cross purposes and rendering him ever more immobilized.
The ornamented bronzework cannon rang as the guard banged his steel-shod hoof on it for emphasis. "...Aaaaand as you can see, ol' braggy-pants here is completely incapacitated. Now, this'll stop your Changeling or your Golem Pony, but for a dragon you're gonna want somethin' to weigh 'im down..."
The cadet had stopped struggling, though smoke the color of dead grass was still rising from the improbably-stretched mouth of the pony that formed the barrel. Sitting by what was presumably the loading hatch was a worryingly disorganized pile of what looked a bit like big canvas-wrapped bundt cakes, each displaying its yield and charge type in clumpy red paint.
The large, whimsically-ornamented cannons had been sitting in their fountain-batteries for centuries, dutifully polished every week and the sundry wishing tokens (and duck shit) cleaned from in and around their pools, until Princess Cadence, recently taking an interest in her husband's duties, pointed out that nopony actually knew how to use them. Given the rise in the number of creatures to which Canterlot was essentially a prepackaged economy tub of delicious pony, it had begun to seem like something of an oversight.
Taking inspiration from an obscure contraption that blasted out confetti and streamers to hastily decorate a room, the Guards' Sorcery and Clockwork Corps developed an armory of exotic munitions to immobilize or repel invaders. Princess Cadence began to endure teasing and harsh looks every summer, however, as the gunnery crews drilled with their nets and birdlime seemingly without regard to anypony's desire for quiet or outdoor space around their practice ground, but the Princess would point out that they at least had the decency to train with the stink charges and other irritants off in the mountains.
Another explosive report knocked him out of his reverie, and he turned from the window back to his desk, folding his quill into an “L” shape with a hoof and placing the bend of it in his mouth to stiffen it for writing. He idly flicked its sideways barbs with his tongue and adjusted the paperweights on the scroll, trying to remember where he left off.
...due to the weathering of the statues, which makes identification by their mane and tail styles inconclusive. However, ceramic fragments found in a layer above, bearing Windigo motifs and containing residue of hays native to the sub-arctic (artifacts diagnostic of the Clover A Culture, see endnotes) indicate the statues date from no later than the Lower Paleohippic. The pose of the statues, however, indicates
*KABOOM*
"...No, they ain't like dragons at all, who can't stand to get dirty. The birdlime ain't even gonna stick to a Must-stang under all that garbage! Tartarus, you try to tackle one, they're liable to take a crap right on ya! Why I knew this reeeeal pretty pegasus gal once, who..."
Rubbing a hoof on his temple, he silently cursed whoever had built these windows with mere anti-weather fields instead of thick, closeable shutters—no doubt another combatant in Equestria’s ancient conflict over whether deep silence or invigorating fresh air was better for studying. Princess Luna knowing his preference for the former, it was no wonder this was the front line to which he’d been shipped.
It wouldn't do any good to move to another part of the lounge—All the other tables were occupied by students who would no doubt be unable to resist an opportunity to talk to the Doctor Ever-Burning Coals, personal physician to Princess Luna and renowned eccentric Renaissance Pony.
Though, again, that was no doubt part of her intention in assigning him an unused room in the library dormitory. His recent archaeological obsessions had left him secluded, sallow-faced, friendless, and frankly weird, and a week of the Ordinary and Alive—Halls filled with laughter about mares, stallions, cider, pranks, and pastry—would return him to a proper place in a proper herd. Sometimes he got the feeling he was Luna’s patient, instead.
Coals sighed and returned to his manuscript, but before he could even dip his quill in the inkwell, he heard something heavy drop on the other side of the reading room, accompanied by a burst of mild profanity and a familiar alto voice chiming in with a self conscious "Oh... oh, sorry!" He smiled briefly, then composed himself, grasping the quill between his forehooves and laying it on the table, as a lanky mustard-yellow form made its way around the stacks to his secluded corner.
"Hey Doc!" The tall, ungainly young earth pony bounded forward and pulled a bundle of papers from her saddlebag. "Here'sh your 'ail for sh’day!" she enunciated around it, then set it down on the table, nearly knocking over a bottle of Coal's painstakingly concocted custom ink. She raised a hoof to push her glasses up her muzzle and then tugged on her red denim vest, in an endearingly transparent attempt to coquettishly fluff the hair of her chest where the lapels met. "And of course, a little something extra! Muenster, this time." She reached into another pocket of her saddlebag, and gingerly pulled out a small burlap package, setting it on top of the mail before releasing the urbanely trimmed gripping-strand of the pink twine that held it together. She withdrew her head in a subtle rightward arc, “accidentally” brushing her neck against his, with the briefest of pauses as both of them tensed in reaction.
"Again, thanks so much for letting us use your quarters in the palace. Colby and Pepperjack told me to say they’re still real sorry about what happened with the rennet and vinegar." Her ears slowly sunk to half-mast.
"Think nothing of it." Coals smiled weakly. The muscles of his cheeks and muzzle felt heavy from the fatigue of long concentration.
"Princess Luna just really likes her cheese. I mean, she came back before I was born, but I guess it's true what they say, about her getting really into it on the moon? Cheese, I mean."
"Mm."
"All those poor cows, though, right? Haha, I mean, they thought it was changelings abducting 'em! I told you about my great grampa's dairy farm, right?"
"Mm-hm."
“Freaky stuff, right?”
“Right.”
“My mom donated a ton of bits to the bat-ponies’ thing to help the moon ones’ descendants be reunited with their families. They can give bad milk, you know? If they’re really down about something? You wouldn't think it would matter all that much, but it’s like, Wow! Night and day.”
“I see.” Coals sniffed and casually tossed his head to make the magnification armatures of his spectacles fall into position, then blinked in momentary disorientation.
She blinked herself, seeming to suddenly remember she was, in fact in a library. She leaned in and stage whispered. “Whatcha working on?”
“It’s…” He glanced at the box on the floor containing one of the statues. His unkempt tail shifted behind him, rasping on the low, upholstered bench. “Some funny old stuff I found. Nothing too exciting.”
“Oh but I love old stuff!” The young mare reached back into her saddlebag, and began snuffling around for the scent of whatever she was looking for while her tail swished excitedly. Each side of her bags was embroidered in bold white letters with half of her name, “SHARP” on one side and “CHEDDAR” on the other, no doubt causing her to spin around to correct anypony meeting her for the first time and usually knocking something over in the process, which no doubt brought endless amusement who whoever had gifted her with them. It was a very old practical joke, but as tricks were one of ponykind’s oldest vices/trust rituals/predator deterrents, every prank was eventually recycled.
Sharp Cheddar pulled her head out of her bag, eliding a “ta-da!” around a metal disk, a container lid of some kind, displaying an embossed, painted Wonderbolts member. Her frumpy mane style and baggy uniform marked it as being at least a century old. Sharp Cheddar leaned down to drop it on the corner of the oak table, where it gyrated tinnily for a moment before lying to rest with the pegasus image upside down. “Isn't it cute? We found it when we were cleaning out my dad’s stuff,” she said, a subtle dreaminess replacing some of the energy in her voice. Coals felt a pang as he looked at it—It wasn't a close resemblance, but something in the cant of the pose reminded him of a winged mare he’d rather not think about.
*KABOOM*
"Good shot, Wavecrest! Feels good to be on the firing end this time, huh?” The Guard’s husky voice carried up from the courtyard as Sharp Cheddar nearly jumped into the air, and Coals wondered when he had begun tuning it out. The sergeant continued. “Now answer me: What do you do if you see a mag-mare?"
"Sir, remove everything flammable and stay out of the proper Guards' way, sir!"
"That is correct!"
“Yikes!” Cheddar had recovered, though her mouth was still drawn into a look of dismayed surprise. “I mean I know this is Canterlot and all? We’re all crammed together on the side of a mountain, right? But isn't the Palace supposed to be like the one place that’s quiet?”
“Nothing is ever fully what it’s supposed to be,” Coals heard himself say, with a tone of unreal remove he hadn't intended. Something resonant of deep time and symbols that struggled to be understood across unremembered ages. His eyes refocusing, Doc Coals couldn't bring himself to look at either Sharp Cheddar to his left, or the humble box on the floor to his right, containing the statue that had so preoccupied him, and he continued staring at the baroque wooden bookshelf across the table.
His earth pony’s emotional sensitivity to magic hadn't warned him off the idols before, so this project had been getting inside his head more than he realized, and he felt a pang of stifling discomfort as he wondered if Princess Luna had indeed been right to worry about him. He quietly drew breath through his teeth. The scents of the reading room took on a smothering cast, as if harmonizing with the dusty vapors and melancholy resonance emanating from the old tin lid on the table.
“Haha, that’s true, I guess!” No more than a second or two had gone by before Sharp Cheddar’s rejoinder, but time had telescoped with the intensity of Coal’s momentary dissociation, and his ears’ sudden turn toward her nearly startled him. She continued, and he deliberately shifted over on his haunches to engage with her fully. “Are they gonna be doin’ that for a while, d’you think?”
It took conscious effort to keep his ears from lowering. “I don’t know.”
“Oh… Well…” Sharp’s head swiveled awkwardly. “I guess I should get back to the worksho—I mean, your...room. Thanks again!” She leaned in and wrapped her neck over his. He tentatively returned the hug, and through his withers he could feel the subtle motion of her swallowing, and the strange, rhythmic shaking of her pulse. “See you tomorrow, Doc!”
He smiled and nodded back to her. Ultimately he was glad he got his mail the non-magical way.
She raised her head and backed away before turning around and trotting off to the door, earning a frown from a small, silver-gray, somewhat boyish pegasus who had to flatten herself against one of the shelves to avoid being shoulder-checked. Coals heard Sharp quietly hum the first few bars of a popular melody before it was muffled by the door knob as she exited.
"...And dismissed! Good work, ponies! Gimme forty laps and then hit the baths!" A series of groans rose up from the volunteers in the courtyard, echoed by students throughout the reading room—This Palace wing would have no fresh towels for the rest of the day.
+ + +
A shared glance was all the Sisters needed to know it was once again time to work. The three mares with whom they’d been sharing the afternoon drew their lips or nodded solemnly, then retreated to the far wall as a building static charge in the room began to make their coats stand on end. With a pair of staccato violet flashes and claps of once-displaced air, the Royal Sisters vanished from the suite. A wax paper biscuit wrapper was drawn upwards by the draft of their passing, its moth-like loops the only sign they had been there at all.
The three mares-in-waiting stood motionless for a moment, before returning to their original practiced composure. “Goodness,” said Tidepool, “You know those looks, ladies; the Princesses shan't be returning today, I’m afraid.” The three mares began to collect their various effects and place them in their respective saddlebags. “I’ll call the maids; surely the poor things would appreciate a change from the laundry and a break for tea... Shall we finish our luncheon on the roof garden, then?”
Her two companions nodded with all the enthusiasm their station allowed.
+ + +
Coals examined the pile of mail Sharp Cheddar had left for him. It was the usual: Issues of scientific journals as well as invitations to speak or examine some local curiosity, updates from distant relations about how little so-and-so had finally gotten a cutie mark, fliers for everything from public sing-alongs and season-team volunteer requests to travelling magic shows and motivational seminars, and one small downy, pink, sweet-smelling mailmare feather. So Sugar Wind was on shift today...
As he neared the bottom of the pile, however, he paused, recognizing the Möbius strip logo of the Telos Foundation, which had finally replied to his request for a hearing of his latest findings in the primeval catacombs beneath the city. As an organization dedicated to promoting harmony and symbiosis among the three pony tribes, Telos was always interested in any new scholarship on Equestrian prehistory, or pony thaumatobiology, two of many fields in which Coals could claim world-class expertise, should he ever stop reigning himself in so as not to tip his hoof or seem too imperious in public.
His liaison to the organization, the fussy pegasus Upper Reaches, had apparently taken time from his busy schedule of… being fussy and important to travel with Coals into the heart of the mountain to examine the object he now believed he understood. He was free to meet at the specified place at any time in the next two days, all Coals had to do was tear the platinum-leaf sigils at the bottom of the letter and Upper Reaches would be alerted by one of the (unsurprisingly expensive) crystals he carried for the purpose.
Coals examined his unfinished manuscript and decided this would be the perfect time to perhaps make it unnecessary, if Upper Reaches would relay all the relevant information for him. He held the Telos letter down on the table with a hoof, then tore the bottom of the letter cleanly across the sigils with his teeth. They flashed for a moment before lifting off the paper, then disintegrating and rising into the air like quickly fading fireflies. He was unsure of how long it would take Upper Reaches to arrive at the meeting point specified in the letter—The statue of Distant Zephyr in the Moonstone Enclosed Commercial Plaza—but it wouldn't do to be late, and he began organizing his effects to place them in his saddle bags.
The case at his hooves containing the small statue entirely took up one side, and he slid his mail off the table to slot into an open file in the other, and then began rolling up his half-finished manuscript and capping his ink. The quill was one of the library’s, so that’s—The cheese, of course! He almost forgot Sharp’s little present. Gingerly picking it up by its twine binding, he dropped it into a side pocket on his bags. A glint caught his attention, and he noticed she’d forgotten the little tin lid she’d placed on the table as well. Ignoring the musty feeling on his lips, he placed it into the bag alongside his files, trying not to look at the pegasus embossed on the top, for the sense of loss it brought to mind.
He slid into his saddle bags and then fastened the hook and eye of his heavy cloak around his neck, its subdued forest green falling all around him to leave only his hooves and the sandy hair of his neck exposed. He took a deep breath and blew any dust off the table, then set his hooves on the hardwood floor with a resounding metallic clink. He was shod, yes, and he didn't care who knew. It only befitted him in his travel-intensive line of work, and its being an earth pony stereotype was merely a coincidence. Several busybody unicorns had petitioned the library to have carpet installed, claiming that hardwood implicitly discriminated against normally-shod earth pony scholars, but were rebuked by the Royal Agricultural Adjutant herself for being patronizing and ignorant, and the matter was quietly forgotten. Nevertheless, Coals, with the practiced grace of a stallion accustomed to danger in foreign lands, turned around and glided toward the door.
+ + +
As always, the guards did not so much as blink when, with a pair of intense flashes and rivulets of crackling brush discharge, Celestia and Luna appeared in the center of their throne room. Once again exchanging no more than a glance with her sister, Celestia gracefully strode to her plushly upholstered seat to pose regally on her haunches, while Luna propelled herself through the air with a single deft flap, alighting in front of the throne room doors and opening them inwards with a steady telekinetic tug.
Two more guards on the far side of the doors nodded in response, and set off in opposite directions at a determined canter, the sound of their hoofsteps quickly vanishing into the deep vermilion carpet.
Luna once more raised herself into the air and glided through the kaleidoscopic shafts that beamed down from the stained glass, before landing back at her sister’s side with four delicate clicks on the marble floor and reclining on a luxurious silver and black chaise lounge of her own design, which she effortlessly manifested from her capacious mental repertoire.
Celestia’s horn glowed, and she rematerialized the charred letter fragment from within the palace’s Semantic Volume, where it had been left to be digested and processed into the network of associations that made up the structure’s various enchantments. If anything like it had been encountered before, by anypony who frequented the palace, something else retained from the building's long history would seek it out and latch on like a thaumatic antibody.
Wisps of association with their recently broken teapot followed it back into physicality, but like remembering an event coincident with a smell or a song, these kinds of connections were common and inevitable. Nevertheless, they refused to be shaken off, no doubt because of the importance that old piece of tableware had held for her and her sister, and Luna’s mind tugged at Celestia's to disregard it.
The sisters straightened their posture and concentrated on their breathing. In, two three four, out two three four...
Their horns began to glow with soft, individually-tuned Cherenkov radiation and wisps of plasma as time and energy exchanged uncertainties to bite into the quantum foam surrounding them and congeal it into a dizzying array of tessellating Planck-scale wave guides. Already the Sisters could feel a kind of austere, arctic wind blowing upwards from the backs of their minds, up through their hindbrains and calming their eternal cyclone of inchoate thought, and clearing away all other fogs of mortal sluggishness. It was a state of consciousness inherent in alicorn thaumatobiology, but the concentration required to maintain it frequently left them drained after long sessions of royal activity.
As they reached their peak readiness, the oscillations of their flowing manes intensified, and the apparent depth inside them dropped away to infinity. The fields of magic abutting them became so intensely charged that any sensitive being would have perceived their coats glowing faintly in the manner of a plasma ball toy, and light began to bend around them to a degree too subtle for any but the most discerning mortal vision. To the sisters, time itself seemed to dilate, and they felt buoyed by an unassailable calmness, and a confidence that nothing inside them was any longer standing in the way of their expressing their love for their subjects or discharging their duties to them.
Now feeling fully prepared and at the apex of their capabilities, they were able to cordially greet the first members of their cabinet to shuffle into the throne room.
Wanting to prime her courtiers with the exceptional nature of the situation, Celestia decided to forgo the traditional circular oaken meeting table and instead called forth five planes of concentrated force to flash through the marble floor, liberating a long rectangular slab which she then raised and bound firmly to the very spacetime of the room, leaving it to hover, ominously inert, at a seated pony’s chest level.
No fussily dressed maids entered with trays of confectionery or sumptuous, palatial cushions. Instead, Luna, reading her sister’s intentions, conjured a mat of black, utilitarian padding trimmed in silver, to bridge the pit left by the floating table, and two rows of similarly spartan black and silver drinking bowls, filled with clear water.
Two dozen ponies of all descriptions and manner of dress quietly split themselves into two lines and filed down the sides of the hall to assume positions on their haunches at the impromptu table, several of them keeping their forelegs close to their barrels as if they were afraid to touch it. A pair of Guards closed the massive throne room doors behind them as they exited, and Luna raised her head to blast a formal greeting in her magically-enhanced voice. A few pairs of ears attempted a retreat, and she continued once they’d returned to standing, her affect stony and unchanging. “A matter curious and singular weighs upon the Royal poll, its regal jewels transformed to leaden bulk. Thy sovereigns, holding dear thy council, would have thy wisdom pierce the riddle of a parchment sphinx, whose fiery visitation burned away the last of our repose.” She closed her eyes and cocked her head with satisfaction.
“Thank you, Luna, that was fun.” Celestia smiled warmly at her sister, then turned to address the table. “What she means is that earlier today the two of us received a damaged piece of a letter of unknown provenance, and as this could signify a problem with the various spells that underlie Equestria’s systems of communication, we decided to cut short our day off—Terribly sorry, by the way, if we've interrupted any of your plans—but this is the kind of thing that’s simply best taken care of before it gets out of hoof.” There were grumbles around the table, but everypony nodded in acknowledgement. Celestia continued. “Here is the letter scrap in question.” She levitated it off the hoofrest of her throne to hover in the air above the center of the table, then projected around it an image expanded to the proportions of a hanging rug, and the leisurely spin of a prize on a display. There was a murmur from the assembly.
“...Anypony have any ideas?” Luna’s earlier bombast was replaced by a whine of puzzlement.
“It looks burned, non-magically.”
“Why does it smell like... rope? Definitely some kind of hemp derivative.”
“Obviously written by mouth. Sawtooth, you've dabbled in graphology, right?”
“Do we know what kind of ink that is?”
“It’s core of parchment is quite sound / No vellum or papyrus found.”
“What’s that magic still on it? It doesn't seem to be connected to anything.”
“Ah, very perceptive, Blueblood. I’m also getting an emotional coloring of displacement, myself. Could we get a pegasus to weigh in?”
“Of course… Oh, how peculiar: magically it seems to be... pulled upwards, indefinitely. A bit like an astronomical body.”
Celestia and Luna listened as the ponies began to break off into little neighboring groups, brainstorming and comparing ideas. So far they’d said nothing the sisters hadn't figured out on their own, but it still surprised them how regularly their immense perspective could blind them to something right on the ends of their muzzles, things the fresh eyes of a mortal pony would uncover with ease.
Still, the thought began to creep into the Sisters’ heads that it might simply be some kind of statistical fluke and a false alarm. Part of Luna’s mind began devising a snack she would later realize is actually just cheese fondue.
There was a momentary consensus it might have been the result of a dragon’s sneeze in a library, quickly abandoned when it was pointed out one of the edges had been deliberately cut, after the letter had been addressed. Otherwise it was perfectly ordinary—Regular dragon's fire-grade paper, regular ink... Contributions began to dwindle, and two giggling, blue-uniformed mares excused themselves to return to their duties reviewing weather petitions.
“You know...” One of the ponies broke the silence that had descended over the hall. “If it’s being pulled heavenward in a—what did you say, astronomical? Astronomical fashion, perhaps we should follow it.”
“Follow it where, Upper Reaches? There’s no provision for something like this in the sky. What are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting we let it tell us where it belongs. Even Princess Luna will tell you the night sky isn’t perfectly predictable and contains many mysteries. We should let the sky itself do the deciding as to what belongs in it or not."
“But it’s obviously of terrestrial origin. Look at the writing.”
“Perhaps. All I’m suggest—Oh my.” Upper Reaches blinked and glanced down at the breast pocket of his coat. “I’m dreadfully sorry, I’m needed on Telos Foundation business. Your Highness, I don’t suppose I could get a facsimile of that scrap, could I?” Celestia nodded and a copy flashed into existence on the table before him, unfortunately lacking the magical tug of the original, but duplicating such an idiosyncratic part of its semantics was beyond the scope of this meeting. He took it in his mouth and placed it in another pocket. “Fillies and gentlecolts,” he said with a bow, then turned towards the door.
+ + +
Coals was making good time, and decided to stop for a moment to pull the little block of cheese out of his bag, so he stepped onto a grassy verge to get out of the pedestrian traffic. Eating on the street could get you fined in sparkling-clean Canterlot, but a tiny morsel like this could be taken in one bite, leaving nopony the wiser. Practiced teeth and tongue quickly undid the twine and freed their contents from the burlap, placing the cube between his back molars before spitting them into a nearby public garbage can. Coals quickly re-moistened his lips, and resumed his rhythm among the cosmopolitan throngs of the gleaming capitol, energized by finally being back in the literal and figurative center of the world.
As always, it was excellent cheese. He was actually disappointed on one level to be kicking the world-class artisans out of his private quarters in a week. As Luna had intended for him to realize, they were getting better use out of it than he had been, with his constant travel. He made a mental note to maintain contact with them, though it immediately occurred to him Sharp Cheddar was probably on top of that already. Maybe her presence was something else Princess Luna had—No…
Not that a part of him wasn't flattered by the girl's awkward little advances, and not that she wasn't cute—He did like the way little dimples formed behind her nostrils when she smiled—but he felt it would be somehow inappropriate, and had attributed her seeming interest in him to her simply feeling gawky and unfeminine, and wanting a bit of validation from a well-known, and now unmarried, stallion.
Apparently Sharp had developed a distrust of spells after her father’s accident, and Coals wondered if his being a fellow earth pony wasn't part of why she’d latched onto him, or why she’d been so excited about her apartment joining the current yuppie fad of getting electric service as opposed to every object having its own magical motive power. All those gaudy blue fliers touting electricity’s “safety & reliability” apparently had the desired effect.
It was true: too much magic in too small a space carried a risk of unpredictable accidents. Coals himself, as a foal, narrowly avoided being scalded in the bath when their downstairs neighbors tried to use magic to dry off their pet ferret. There would be a high-profile magic incident in the news, and ponies would begin clamoring for electricity, until over the decades it became its own thicket of disquietingly intricate wires and fields, and the pendulum would swing back, in a textbook illustration of pony alarmism and herd behavior.
Coals rounded a corner and descended the marbled ramp into Canterlot’s brightly-lit lower tiers. A youngish peach-colored pegasus mare standing halfway down the ramp made to pass him a flier in her mouth, saying something about a street performance art show, and without thinking he took it between his own teeth, feeling a sudden chill at the way the mare's eyes momentarily transfixed him with their odd, probing severity. Switching to a momentary three-legged gait, he folded the paper and placed it into his bag, before emerging into a wide, rococo atrium, with furnishings and ornamentation of ebony and marble inlaid into the floor and walls, marking pedestrian lanes with flowing script about which parts of the city they lead to. The magic powering the lights registered in his mind as a feeling of calm welcoming, as if he'd been expected.
In the center of the atrium stood a monumental statue of a robed unicorn rearing onto her hind legs and planting one forehoof on the ceiling, the other supporting an open golden book against her chest, from which a sheet of water trickled down the pages and along the bottom. Strips of material inlaid into the ceiling in baroque, filigreed patterns glowed with a soft yellow light, giving the plaza an atmosphere a human might associate with an upscale department store lobby sometime around Christmas.
Beyond a row of planters bearing small red blossoms was one of the city’s interior canals, and his specified meeting point with Upper Reaches. Coals trotted over to the row of benches around the giant statue, and lay on his stomach, stretching his forelegs out in front of him, underneath his cloak. He thought about eating a flower or two off the planters (half of what they were for, after all) but a kind of fatigue overcame him and he decided to rest.
+ + +
The energy of the meeting had fully dissipated. Celestia and Luna, no longer sensing productive input from the fresh eyes of their mortal compatriots, dismissed the crowd, and while Celestia rubbed her temples with her pasterns, Luna reattached the floating marble slab to the floor, the original cut so clean that its natural grain structure rolled seamlessly back into place with just the daintiest touch of a razor-thin flash of blue-white heat, and a whiff of vaporized limestone.
Mares and stallions, chatting idly amongst themselves, shuffled out of the throne room. As the doors closed, only a teal hoofkerchief and smattering of pegasus down were left behind. While her sister meditated, Luna discorporated them and added their essences to the palace’s eternal memory. Like the sisters, the palace forgot nothing, but actually recalling something could be a level of challenge far above mere retention. Things became lost among orders of magnitude.
Celestia, still sharing the transcendent alicorn sense of clarity, did not have to voice her next idea to her sister; the mere inclination of her head and narrowing of her eyes conveyed her meaning as plainly as the most laborious explanation. Luna responded with the most delicate raising of her brow, invisible to any but her sister.
So certain art thou, that such a trifle shall drive thee to the claws of chaos?
Celestia nickered, and momentarily closed her eyes. He’s shown no evidence of harmful behavior since Project Fluttershy. And we both know how invaluable he was in repelling Typhon.
Luna stepped close to her sister and nuzzled her neck with a concerned whinny. Thou say’st such, yet with such a fiend such concord to appeal; ere today thy battered soul mine wings and fetlocks hath much succored. Pray, let thy sister of the night be thy lantern in such realms where Chaos doth the light of Harmony make pale as the awful calm of mine own faintest star.
Celestia snorted and flexed her wings, then ran her teeth across Luna’s poll, the magic in them pulling her mane against its ethereal breeze with what Luna felt as a pleasant, grooming tug. You're lapsing again, sister. But no: It was my idea to involve Fluttershy, and it was my idea that Discord could be reformed at all. I took that risk in trusting him, and until we know he’s truly on our side, that’s a risk I, and only I, have to continue to take.
Luna nuzzled her sister back and began to neigh. Tia, I—
Celestia withdrew, then kissed her sister on the cheek. Trust me.
It was Luna who finally spoke aloud. “Very well, dear sister. We shall withdraw to our Tower of the Darkening Sky. Prithee call on us, when thy duty is discharged.” Returning her kiss, Luna took a deep breath and teleported away. Celestia felt her feathers and the hairs of her coat momentarily rise as the electric charges in the room regained equilibrium. Letting her eyes remain closed, Celestia began her mental preparations for Contact.
As likely as not, Discord would be completely unhelpful. When the entity could even be reached at all, making any sense of “his” (the pronoun he seemed to prefer a bit more often than any of the others) free associating, elliptical word salad was usually more trouble than just solving the problem on your own. When he’d appear, looking like a hurricane that had blown through a zoo, it was usually best all the guards were dismissed from the chamber, otherwise rather unsavory rumors tended to spread around the capitol. There was still too much suspicion after his re-emergence, as much as ponies were grateful he’d limited his unusual manifestations to mostly foodstuffs this time, in contrast to the rather lurid and graphic legends passed down from his original appearance.
Now, supposedly, he was “safe.” Many advisers had wracked their brains trying to understand the creature, but it was only Celestia, consummate master of Harmony, who was able to devise a solution, even knowing she’d have to let it out of her own hooves: It was only the actions of one very brave pegasus spending enough time in contact with the entity that seemed to convince him ponies were, in fact, alive. Celestia and Luna, in their own contact with him, had come to the conclusion he was a being of Configuration Space itself, existing “orthogonal” to their own conception of existence, like the axis of Imaginary numbers perpendicular to the Reals. Something about Equestria had lured him from… elsewhere, and until they were finally able to “impale” him on an abstruse spike of petrified, congealed unfreedom, he was regurgitating regions of those... other places, dredged up through his abstract body that stretched like an ancient dragon through numberless possible worlds.
But Equestria still had some mysterious property the entity called Discord claimed to need for his life cycle or growth or whatever his equivalent of those things were, something he called “appreciation,” thought it was unclear if it was in the sense of the aesthetics of his constant tricks, or accumulation, or both.
In either case, whenever the strange or the unearthly needed probing, or whenever something seemed connected to nothing whatever in Equestria, Discord was the one who might hold the answer.
+ + +
With the sudden realization of his unconsciousness, Coals was jolted awake on his bench. The clock on the corner told him no more than ten minutes had passed, and he was about to relax once more, when a cry caught his attention.
“Doctor Coals! I say! Over here! Yoo hoo!” The voice of the always-ruffled Upper Reaches was unmistakable. Coals stepped his left pair of legs off the bench, then shifted his weight and caught himself with his other pair, before trotting off to meet his contact. He saw the pegasus by the canal, half out of a covered, deep maroon gondola, one foreleg on the bank while the other waggled in the air for attention.
“Upper Reaches! Well, what a quick arrival—I’m impressed,” Coals returned, still trying to shake the grogginess from his brain.
“Surely you expected nothing less from the Telos Foundation…!” There was a subtle wink in his voice. He knew his position was enviable and granted him special privileges, and it would be beneath his dignity to pass an opportunity to acknowledge such. “I've taken the liberty of hiring us some convenient transportation. Please, hop in! Don’t worry, I've already paid the fellow!”
Coals leaped from the bank into the wide front deck of the gondola, between Upper Reaches and the distracted gondolier, a dark green unicorn with prodigious, corded neck muscles and a rather vacant, bored expression. He was chewing on something, the action of his mouth making small, wet popping noises whenever his lips parted. Upper Reaches momentarily stretched his wings, but quickly withdrew them as Coals slid onto a plush gold cushion underneath the little boat’s awning.
Upper Reaches’ dark purple-gray top hat and overcoat were suitably elegant and timeless, and matched as a darker shade of his natural coat, while a neat green pocket square coordinated with his immaculate white mane and tail, though the white cotton “chaps” he wore on the upper surfaces of his wings spoke to his fastidiousness, almost to the point of affectation, or a statement that he should not be expected to exert himself in flight. He was what, in the more uncouth parts of cloud cities, was known as a “penguin”—A diving bird who might as well not have wings at all.
He settled down next to Coals, then nodded to the gondolier. “Awrigh’,” the unicorn mumbled back, still chewing on whatever was in his mouth. “You all tucked in back there?”
“Oh yes, thank you!” Upper Reaches nodded enthusiastically, and the unicorn levitated his long, bite-marked paddle up from its cradle on the gunnel, then spat the contents of his mouth into the canal and locked his teeth around it. Several ducks noticed the change and began lazily paddling out of the way, preening and quacking softly among themselves.
Upper Reaches tried to draw information out of Coals about what he’d discovered in the catacombs, but all he was willing to volunteer was that the artifacts he had with him were deeply connected with it, and it would be better if the two were seen side by side.
They mostly passed the trip in silence, the gondola occasionally tipping down ramps into lower tiers of the city. The boats were more for tourists, and the majority of them were easily convinced the magical barriers would indeed keep them from completely pitching over a waterfall, but the lurches were still somewhat disorienting.
They emerged into another, slightly less opulent pedestrian mall. Down a brightly lit side street, a crowd had gathered to listen to a public performance on an instrument a human could be forgiven for calling a harpsichord. Down another street, two fat, officious-looking griffins were watching a unicorn levitate several marionettes in some kind of slapstick comedy.
They soon disembarked in the soft orange lamplight of the Taproot district, an ancient zone of workshops, cider houses, and budget inns, carved primarily out of the mountain itself, near the very bottom of the city. The extraordinary amounts of public incense were able to cover up the acrid odors of smithies and centuries of pony sweat, but only just, and the dense aroma made Upper Reaches' eyes water for several seconds once he stepped onto the embankment.
He followed Coals down a wide alley, past several squat stone buildings emitting an indecipherable combination of metallic clangs and raucous laughter. They exchanged a polite nod with a circle of ponies and one diamond dog sharing a hookah made from an old municipal censer, then turned another corner to arrive at the surprisingly plain and unadorned entrance to the most ancient part of the tunnels. Upper Reaches had expected a sign, or a curtain, or at least some kind of frame around the threshold, but it was simply a rough circular shaft sunk into the face of the rock between two shops, sloping gently downward and swallowing the light as if it were stuffed with ink-stained cotton.
“After you, Doctor.” Upper Reaches retrieved a pair of lanterns from his saddlebag, and set one on the floor for Coals. The specially bred moths inside stirred to life, their tireless activity summoning a flame for them to dance around by conservation of symbolism. Coals took the handle in his mouth, fitting the pads against the gums of his bar, and noting the residual flavor of expensive Shetland Highlands hay that Reaches had been indulging in earlier.
Coals was only vaguely familiar with this part of the tunnel network, and assumed Reaches had chosen this location as an indirect method of gauging how thorough his research had been, but Coals had a schematic of the mountain in his head, and was confident he’d be able to lead them to his discovery. “Yes. Well… Let’s go.” He rolled his shoulders to give his cape a dramatic flap, then trotted confidently into the darkness.
“Oh! Oh, um! Yes! Let’s!” Reaches’ high tenor was clear around his lantern, something they both subconsciously felt as a shred of camaraderie—It was a rare unicorn who was practiced enough to speak clearly while holding something in his or her bar.
There was simply nothing to say. For more than two hundred meters, the pair just appreciated the silence and warm glow of the torches continually maintained in the sconces built into the walls. This was one of the older parts of the crystal mines below the city. For millennia, long before the founding of Equestria proper, ponies had been mining this mountain for the unusual minerals and crystals it contained. It was fiercely contested, but as what they considered Equestria's only "true" civilization, and with the reflexes, observational skills, and teamwork born of being raised from the cradle as a prey species, no other creature could keep them away for long.
Not to mention that Celestia and Luna had promised them this mountain, after their long interregnum in the Windigo-besotted latitudes. A wave of marching hooves pushed back all other scattered tribes with what the ponies themselves saw as token resistance. Only extremely rarely did things escalate to any kind of lethality, mainly through accident, but ponies were not ones to refuse to match their opponent measure for measure.
Some sections of these tunnels dated back to the original construction of Canterlot itself, atop the wind-swept crystal mining encampments, and if the ancient graffiti left behind in them was any indication, the interests and obsessions of bored workponies had changed very little in the intervening millennia.
The pair rounded another bend. Now there were no more sconces, and the tunnels were defined only by the strokes of long rusted-away pick axes. The pair’s lanterns were the only thing between them and absolute darkness. Upper Reaches was almost glued to Coals’ side, and even he had trouble fighting his instincts to flee whatever predator might be lurking in the blackness beyond the flickering bubble of his lamp. Even the walls were only visible as an occasional glimmer of quartz or the sides of a timeworn ax stroke, while the floor was worn smooth through periodic rivulets of overflowing rainwater—Something that had never happened in either of their lifetimes. It was as if the two of them were walking on a stone treadmill suspended in a thin tunnel of stars. They walked onward in fitfully broken silence for nearly another hour, following what approximated a wide, downward spiral.
Coals stopped momentarily and closed his eyes. Upper Reaches bumped into his flank, and worked his mouth as if he were about to ask a question, but then realized he shouldn't distract the stallion while he was mentally confirming their route. The tunnels were vast, but laid out logically.
The pair descended an eroded flight of stairs, barely managing to maintain their footing, broken only by several landings, before arriving at in a chamber so vast that their lanterns were utterly unable to reach the walls. They were stranded on a platform of stone in an infinity of echoing blackness.
“We’re here.” Coals doffed his saddlebags and opened one side with his teeth, then withdrew a hefty wooden case, unclasping it with his front hooves, and removing a small artifact wrapped in tissue paper, then setting it on the floor.
"Are you familiar with the full story of the Queen of Equestria? Not the metaphorical, 'even the Princesses serve Equestria herself' one from civics class, but the actual legend?" Coals nudged the statue toward Upper Reaches.
"I think so... Wasn't it something like... 'Once she ate all the wild grass in the heavens, she got sleepy, so she lay down until her hooves became the earth, her feathers became the sky, her horn holds it up, her eyes became the sun and moon, her voice became magic, and her cutie marks became the first two ponies?' Something along those lines."
"Very good. Now who do you suppose… planted all that grass She ate?"
“Well, it… Um… it was just there, of course. It was the grass of heaven. What else would you expect to be there in heaven?"
“Hm. I wonder.” Coals gave the object at their hooves a tap with his nose. “Here, unwrap this. It was found in the North, before there's any record of the Three Tribes living there.”
Upper Reaches gently took a flap of the tissue paper in his teeth and pulled away, sitting on his haunches and keeping the object steady with his forelegs. Slowly, it was revealed.
It was a statue of an earth pony, rearing on its hind legs, but its front hooves were... split, with an extra toe on either side, bent down to form stubby tripods at the ends of its outstretched forelimbs. Upper Reaches had heard of such a rare deformity, but it usually affected all four of a pony's hooves, and was never capable of that range of movement. Nowadays, foals born with extra toes usually had them removed right away, or magic was used to prompt the body to reabsorb them during growth. Like a dragon with feathers instead of scales, he'd only seen the deformity in medical texts.
One of the statue's "toes" had broken off, as well as its tail, apparently, giving it an even more half-formed, distorted appearance.
More remarkably, however, the statue's eyes were closed, and a stylized symbol of single open eye had been carved into its forehead, where a unicorn's horn would be, its mane slicked back to expose it.
"What is this?"
Coals didn't respond. Instead, he bounded forward and held his lantern up as high as he could. A muzzle, and then a pair of split forelimbs loomed out of the darkness. Larger than life, another rearing stone stallion, ancient as the hills, stood before them in the bowels of Caterlot, the single abstract eye carved into its forehead still able to fix them with an interstellar detachment made all the more remote by time.
"They..." Coals set the lantern down on the raised dais that supported the frozen apparition, "... were the First Ponies."
+ + +
Configuration Space
Equestria/Terra-spectrum Ontological Paradox Nest
Timelike Iteration 99999999999999999999999999999999999999[ERROR: OVERRUN]
The preponderance of Discord was still pleased, even here, that the innumerable rocky needles that had so infuriatingly fixed him in place (and still did, back there) had long ago reached the limit of their spread. Before long, this advancing front of his consciousness would be too far away in the “change” direction to even sense them.
He had been foolish to ever consider himself alone (and friendless), he realized—The intricate point patterns that varied dazzlingly quickly over even short distances had in fact been a form of life—some kind of sessile, multicolored crystalline entities that fed on the entropy gradients across their extent. And they were not pleased with his attempts to develop the area into something a little more hospitable, piercing him all over with stone thorns like some omnidimensional cactus.
He should have been ready, given the unusual nature of the area, so different from the homogeneous wastes of unchanging dust and light that tiled Configuration Space like dunes, or the singularities that regularly blocked his way with their leeward shoals of non-being, and perhaps he had been a little… very well, more than a little cavalier in his probing of its inhabitants, but Discord’s life had been a solitary one, without so much as another soul he could confidently see within the horizons of his memory. He never dreamed there was anyone home inside these formations, let alone that one of them would try to communicate, the patterns of her intelligence, her wings, and her kindness spelled out along her every axis. The universe was a vastly richer and more welcoming place than he had believed, and it gave him pause.
Having oozed this far in the direction that these strange, baryonic creatures called “tiem,” several... somethings were wont to shift. There were flashes of the native phenomenology of “white” all around him. The entity that called itself Celestia had once again risen to communicate.
(full size here)
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Gah! You're going to stop with Celestia just about to ask Discord? You're just plain cruel.
Also, I don't think my brain is evolved enough to fully appreciate the imagery you're constructing. When you describe the Sisters using magic it was pretty and all, but I could really imagine it that well.
Or it could be me trying to read it at 4 am.
3345702
Im fairly certain that is in fact the desired effect, magic (along with the world it existing in for that mater) is a completely alien thing.
Holy heck. Those are some amazing pictures.
some people might ask about the story and some things that you wrote in it along with characters and plot organization and such.
Nope not me, i wanna know, if that picture in canterlot is somewhat real in the artist's eyes, where all the damn water comes from and goes!
As dense and excellent as always.
I did have a question, though. It sounded like the tunnel entrance they went into was just randomly located between two buildings in the middle of the city. If that's the case, then why wasn't there more traffic or evidence of ponies exploring? If there was a mysterious tunnel in the middle of my city, the kids would be all over it.
...Darn it, now I want a mysterious tunnel in the middle of my city.
Currently my favorite fanon of Equestria here.
I think you could have been a bit clearer with the non verbal communication involving the sisters, right near the end it gets a little muddled.
Also as someone who has a rather sensitive sense of smell my metaphorical advice to think about it is this:
Try approaching it like vision with extremely precise color acuity but for a flat pattern, distinct odors as most people describe are analogous to color patterns and some are more pleasant then others but that is more a personal taste thing.
However the strength of a smell can be made analogous to brightness. for me this makes the perfume sections of department stores a mind assaulting experience a bit like having a led display of pink and green as bright as a search light shoved in my eye unless I stop breathing. If i hold my breath Then it is more like having a flashlight pressed against a closed eye.
Greater sensitivity to Smell could be seen as more color receptors which give either better scent discrimination (more resolution in the pattern) or more breadth of chemical cues (more colors or better color distinction).
Once you have that in mind then there is the spatial association which seems to be less pronounced I mammals from what I recall this let's directionality of a scent to be more easily determined.
If our nostrils were set wider apart or we had antennae this would put scent more properly in a given spatial orientation and give less need for the back and forth head weave of a searching blood Hound.
Hope that helps you with the description of scent in your stories in the future, although I thought you were doing pretty good so far.
You make my head hurt with all of the awesome magical and extradimensional stuff, you really do. This chapter was really engrossing, something I haven't felt in a long time. Well done, and I will have you know that this was well worth the wait.
I like the pictures too. Celestia looks very powerful in interplanar form.
If you restored a block of stone to its previous spot, it wouldn't be Van der Waals forces bringing it back into place. When you broke it the first time and slid it out, something special would have to be done to prevent the atoms right along the edge from shearing off. Perhaps the cut was a discontinuity in space so that the material remained continuous throughout the process.
The closest I can come is if the nuclei were held in place, in which case you'd need to trim away the adsorbates and the reaction products created when the surface radicals relaxed. If you did that, then slipping the block back in place would involve ionic and covalent bonds, with a little VdW here and there.
Moreover, sliding one thing past another, the VdW forces that would be 'guiding' it back into place would be overwhelmed by the much stronger VdW forces from the nearer parts of the other block.
Basically, I like details. I don't like needlessly wrong details.
This was glorious. I love these interludes, because they show a fully realized civilization of magical horse-beings with culture and abilities far beyond that shown by the Flash cartoon that happens to resemble them. Your take on Discord was also fascinating, something like Lovecraft by way of Lewis Carroll, or possibly the other way around. Definitely looking forward to more in both worlds and the spaces beyond.
3345702
I'm afraid I am, because my brain definitely isn't evolved enough to actually write that... I had a lot of trouble figuring out how I wanted to do that, actually, because Celestia had to come to know certain things, but it didn't make any sense that she didn't know them earlier, so I needed an unusual source. I know what I'm going to have her do next, but I haven't decided during what part of that we'll next drop in on her.
3345848
Pretty much. I don't wanna just say "it's magic!" so I wracked my brain trying to come up with something a little more concrete.
3345853
Thanks! I figured that as long as I can...
3346493
Portals.
3346596
Glad you liked it.
I was going for that feeling of something you personally would think is unusual being totally ordinary to the locals. If you've ever read Mark Twain's The Innocents Abroad, he remarks on this sort of thing a lot, how extraordinary things you'd expect to be emphasized in a locale are just kind of "there," as another unremarkable object. It's supposed to be a bit of purposefully odd realism, in how things often aren't like what you expected, or defy common sense in how they're set up - Kind of a "why would anyone design a parking lot this way!?" type of thing.
Presumably there are several of these tunnel entrances around the city, so when they were just putting up a shop somepony was like, "I think there's a spot next to the hole." They just picked this one to go into because it was the entrance closest to the bottom levels.
3346597
Wow, thanks; That's really awesome to hear.
That's a good description, I'll definitely keep it in mind. Like, I can smell normally like a few times a year, for a few minutes at a time, but usually it's not enough to tell the difference from my own imagination. I'll for sure hit up some doctors and do something about it once I start making actual grown-up money, but for very reason it's not high on my list at the moment...
3347196
It was supposed to be a bit challenging and enigmatic, but except for coming up with all those incidental little details it wasn't nearly as much fun to write, either. Next chapter will be back on Earth and should go a lot smoother.
3349904
Really glad you thought so! I wanted it to actually feel concrete and real and not just another abstract description of "Hey that Equestria place we all know." It's real to the ponies, after all..
And I love Badass Celestia, so that was super fun to draw (though collaging all that math in there was pretty tedious).
3350660
I knew that wasn't really right but didn't stop to do my homework since I was determined to get this published that day...
Augh, I could just die.
I thought it would be inelegant for them to have to "fix" the floor and so was trying to evoke a sense of the cuts being so fluid and precise and the stone being held in such complete stasis that all the micro-crystals along the edges were themselves uncut and uncontaminated, and able to simply slot back into each other like legos, and that was the first non-reactive binding force that came to mind.
I'll ask my subconscious to think of something good to replace it with when I go to bed, since I did give the impression the cut was more violent than that... (I should probably just say a shorter version of that)
Shit, I feel like a huge ass - I hate when stuff like that is wrong, too, but just let myself get lazy and then called out on it.
3351244
It was super fun to come up with all those details - I had a bunch more that I cut, regarding both Coals' and Sharp Cheddar's backstories and related lore, and the nature and history of the tunnels below the city, but I decided to save the former for another interlude, and the later would have been a ridiculous break in the eerie atmosphere I realized I'd been trying to build. I copy-pasted them to another document though, so...
Wow, "glorious," I like that...
Ironically that Discord part was one of the easiest to write - I've had that interpretation of him in my head pretty much since I started working on this, and was really jazzed when I realized I had an opportunity to actually use him instead of just as part of an infodump.
3355228 well played trollestia... well played...
3355228
Y'know, there's probably an even easier way to do it considering cutting up the floor and then repairing it seems like an egregious waste of magical power. Especially since the Sisters have had the time and loyal craftsponies to just build a design in the floor, the center of which is circular, is so exactingly flush that most ponies would never notice the seam, but it's not actually mortared in place. That way, when they need a table, they can just lift up the center, and when they're done they just set it back.
I know, I know, casually playing with nuclear forces is more impressive.
Darn cliffhangers.. They shouldn't be so effective. I wanted to at least find out what the question was!
Had to re-read this one to follow all of the details, but I have few criticisms. It wasn't quite as interesting as some of the other chapters. Not enough action I suppose.. The descriptions where things were compared to earth tech (like pagers) just felt off. There was nobody in the scene that would know what a pager was!
Now that I've complained, THANK You, Thank You, Thank you, thanks... um.. lots and lots for the update!! I've been enjoying this exploration of the equestrian world more than most.
My own theories are proven groundless once more. So much for my theory that some lazy postal worker was trying to deliberately lose some unicorn's homework in the dragon mail. Looks like now we'll need to get an expert pony on the job.. And lookie! We found one!
3356147
Haha, yeah, rule of cool. Presumably Celestia does things like this every once in a while; tables made out of water or something.
Nothing says "advanced" to me like that kind of control over matter, to create seamless objects at will. Of course it works best in prose, since in movies and comics and such you need some visual detail. I've noticed sci-fi spaceships nowadays have gone back to being really baroque and festooned with lots of little devices and other greebles, while computer interfaces have gone in the direction of hyper-minimalism, so it'll be interesting to watch them chase each other around the style landscape for the next 10~15 years.
Anyway, I fixed that part. I actually did have a little part of a dream that just said "learn about marble," and so I found this paper talking about how the grains of stressed marble would really only change back under very high heat, so voila. Just take it as a given that it's enough heat to do that but not enough to make the floor explode. I had to touch on it since it just always bugs me when people take incredible, seemingly-impossible events at face value, because I always wonder what's happening on the microscopic level - When someone talks about, say, a statue weeping blood, I'm always like "Whose DNA is in the blood? Are there viruses in it? Antibodies from previous infections? What are the glucose, oxygen, and hormone levels? As they appear, are the cells being 'printed,' or are they dividing?" and on and on.
3356387
I knooooooooow, it's so manipulative to leave things like that, but it just works amazingly well... I suppose humans just have to know.
For the pager thing, I was trying to set it up as just a case of convergent evolution; that humans and ponies basically had the same idea, of a thing you would carry around that let you know in a really simple way when someone/pony was trying to communicate with you, and who it was. It wasn't supposed to literally be a pager so much as the abstract idea of an object that lets people "ping" you, and when I wrote it I realized I'd basically just (re)invented the pager.
But hehe... You'll just have to wait and see what the ultimate situation is... We'll be back on Earth next time, which will definitely be more active and fun (and easier to write...).
So, I think I finally got a compliment good enough (maybe) for this chapter. Remember when you finished your painting of Canterlet? How everyone was blown away by the detail and imagination and other-worldliness and beauty you put in there? How it felt epic and real? Well you did that but in words this time, and it's awesome.
...I do have to agree with 3356387, unless the narrative voice itself starts remarking upon the differences between Earth and Equestria, it really does feel out of place. Though I did laugh at the atmosphere of department store lobby. Anyways, thanks for another mind-expanding chapter!
3357049
Well, I had to go back and read it. I don't really know how the first one was wrong, but the second works pretty well. I think. I don't know much about rocks, flash points, and the effort necessary to seamlessly seal two parts of the same rock together. Oh well.
But...
I did find this:
*thy lantern.
P.S. I think the wording is a bit weird at the end as well. "chaos doth the light of Harmony so pale." Chaos pales the light of Harmony, so "so" seems weird because normally "so pale" is a description of how pale things are, but in this case pale is being used to describe what happens to something else. (Noun instead of adverb? I have no idea. Was never good at describing English' mechanics.) "greatly pale" might work better because it emphasizes the action without confusing whether there is an action.
I think.
3357375
Thank you so much; that really means something special to me... I remember when I was in elementary school and my mom was driving me home one day (the bus didn't come out to where we lived), she was telling me how when she was my age, in a textbook she saw a quote from Francis Bacon about having "taken all knowledge to be [his] province," and she immediately stood up in the middle of class all like "Holy shit you guys!" (not literally; the nuns wouldn't have liked that), but I remember being similarly blown away when I heard that line. Really, the universe is all of a piece, and every part of it can be seen reflected in every other part, and I don't think there's any feeling in the world more pleasant and satisfying than expanding your mind (there are lots of clues in this chapter about what's ultimately going on, though I made an effort to couch them in oblique terms). The cultural critic C.P. Snow, in the '50s, wrote about a schism between the sciences and the humanities, and I'm very happy to see that wound starting to heal, and people once again realizing the unity of all knowledge. Edge.org being the ur-example, of course (the title and subtitle of this story are a jab at that schism; originally the summary contained the line, "Hey C.P. Snow, how ya like me now!?").
Wow, I'm... I'm seriously honored that you're enjoying this so much. There's really nothing better for an artsy type to hear than that; it's like the goateed, beret-wearing version of a child's laughter. Tell the people! Tell them about this story! They have a right to know...!
Especially to have it called "mind-expanding"...Wow!
3357639
Yeah, it was kind of an incidental thing, but as someone who is formally trained as a fine artist, and is only an autodidact (so far...) when it comes to the physical sciences, it's very important to me to get things right. The issues Sozmioi raised are all legit, I was just deciding to ignore them and hoping I wouldn't get called on it.
Rocks like marble are made of lots of microscopic crystals (these are the things people analyze in radiometric dating), and I was trying to describe a fracture along those crystalline faults so clean that you could just pop the slab back in and it would fit, like a quintillion little magnets being held in check until they can clack back together, but Sozmioi rightly pointed out that I'd earlier described brute planes of cutting force slicing through the marble, so all the little crystals and other bits of compressed limestone in there would be cut in half, and then chemically react with the air, as well as pony skin/hair oils and sweat, and pollen, dust, bacteria, etc. so unless you wanted to hold the slab in such a state of stasis that you couldn't usefully interact with it (like the Monolith in the novel version of 2001, which literally cannot be touched; everything stops infinitesimally shy of the surface), it would be changed irrevocably by its removal, and "couldn't go home again." So instead I decided to go with the cut being clean enough that it can slide back in, but some application of melting heat and extra limestone (marble is sort of to limestone what diamond is to coal) was needed to make up for the changes. Extreme heat concentrated in a small area can do explosive damage (this is how pulsed lasers work as weapons), but let's just say this was tuned in just the right way, and over a short enough span of time, to not have that happen (this is how they work as carving tools, such as for arterial stents). In this case, they're causing the crystals to deform just enough to fit back together, since according to my research this morning, marble crystals are resistant to all but extreme heat. I would have described it as "solar heat," but for my having Luna be the one to do it.
Awwwwwwwwww shit, you're right, it's "thy." Thanks for that - Good eyes. I was limited a lot by trying to get the lines to scan in (something resembling) iambic pentameter, which is why I settled on the one-syllable word "pale" for that line (if Shakespeare has taught me anything, it's that you shouldn't be afraid to coin new words or new meanings for old ones...or to sprinkle your works with cartoon idiots... But then he's Shakespeare), so I added an extra clause on the end there to circle back to Luna's status as Princess of the Night, by borrowing a phrase from the Victorian Robert G. Ingersoll, regarding the sublime image of early humans' trembling in fear at "the awful calmness of the stars," a phrasing that never fails to bring a lump to my throat.
By the by, I want to have some bits about the Equestrian language later, so I might PM you for advice, since I can tell from what you've been able to create that you're more versed [rimshot] in that kind of thing than I am.
3359280
So I grabbed a phrase and said 'mind-expanding' instead. Whoops! 
Don't take this wrong, I'm glad I made ya really happy, but I had to tell the truth and all. It's still my favorite story partly because you're able to put in some crazy perspectives down in writing and it's always fun to look at the universe in a new way.
Oh jeez. I'm sorry, but I have to correct you here: I kinda misused the phrase "mind-expanding". See, people often say 'mind-blowing' to indicate that something's too much for their feeble and unexercised brains, but while this chapter was Sci-Awe enough that I felt like saying it was 'mind-blowing' my mind wasn't...actually...blown.
Also, that Edge.org has some interesting articles, so thanks for linking me.
Don't lose your marbles!
3360176
Weird, that's what my family and friends always say...
I've been working on the next chapter, starting with a tie-in scene that's pretty much required to be touched on in pony fics of this type, and once more tried to do a unique reconceptualization of it, but I think this time I might have gone too far in trying to be different, though only in an attempt to take dreams seriously on their own terms, instead of as a kind of holodeck. I'll have to think about it and move onto other parts of the chapter that are more, uh, concrete...
3367984
If you can pull off reality-into-words, it can be much better than whatever writing contrivances you otherwise would have used. Most dream sequences here on fimfic are in the 'fantastic-unreality' level of believability, (it's a holodeck because magic,) so I hope you can get whatever your ideas are to work. Also, I don't know if you have anyone prereading, but I could give you another set of eyes on that section if you think it might help.
3322075
The only rule that applies is "— No stories involving bronies. -Human in Equestria on the other hand is alright." Stories where humans turn into ponies but stay on Earth aren't very common, but The Last Crusade got on EqD just 11 days ago. In addition:
I don't think you'll have any problems with that part I bolded.
Word of warning, though: If you're not careful about it they'll put up that Canterlot picture as the story's header, and EqD has always been rather slow to change a fic's header image on the rare occasions they ever do so. And if you feel that you need any kind of serious help, search around the fimfic groups and you'll find lots of experienced and willing people.
3368498
Hmm, thanks for that - That's really good to know. Of course nothing short of actual ponies would make me happier than having this story on EQD. If a bunch of us mail it in, and I write a nice note to accompany it, I'm sure they'll give it the time of day.
I do have to change the cover, though - I switched it to the Canterlot pic hoping it would draw in more readers when it updated, but that didn't happen, so oh well. I'll switch it back to the original one, but part of me also thinks I should make a new one that's a little more marketable and indicative of the contents. Nothing's coming to me off the top of my head, though.
3371286
Huh. Coulda sworn there was a rule against submitting a fic that's not yours, but there totally isn't. Still, I don't think sending more than one submission for the same story's a good idea if this chart's anything to go by. Anyways, you can take a look at all their rules over here and here. That chart's from a link on their fanfic submission forum/page.
3371286
I have an idea for a new cover pic. How's this mockup look?
i1057.photobucket.com/albums/t386/Derpmind/Derped.jpg
Made with windows paint and a mouse. Really hard to write those sideways letters on the can.
3371360
Yikes, good point - That's a lotta stories.
I'll definitely think about how to present it (pull-quotes from nice things in the comments...?) and if any new cover images float to mind. Maybe something with some of the other characters in it, to hint at plot and such that I hadn't thought of whatsoever when I made that drawing?
3371424
Ha!
I was saving that for the sequel; how did you know!?
Or maybe outtakes at the end, Smokey & The Bandit style.
3371432
Well, the Canterlot painting isn't directly related to the main thread of the story. And it probably helps to have the title of the story in the picture.
I've always liked the cover pic you made, though I suppose you could notch up the detail a bit. If there's one criticism I have, it's that Blue Shift doesn't look stoned enough.
I guess I'll also nominate the last pic of chapter 8. Instead of showing us the stoned side of our protagonist, using that one as a cover would give a sense of place. And tone. And awesomeness. It just needs the title and the, ah, under-title added to it and it would totally work.
One last suggestion: If you decide to replace the current title image with another one, you could keep the old one hanging around at the top of the first chapter.
3371602
That's a really good idea, I'm gonna put the title in that pic right now...
EDIT: Oh yeah, that's much better. Thanks!
I do like the way the new title image helps to introduce the work. In my non-artistic opinion It has a pleasant, colorful, realistic vibe to it. I always get the impression of some plucky unicorn picking up from the dirt and trotting forward, head held high!
My only complaint is that some of the text is not readable unless you expand the image on my display.
Looking forward to the next installment. Dream images eh? If ponies are more sensitive to harmony, I wonder what kinds of mental connections would hook up at night...
Just realized something. I couldn't figure out what the 'tiem' reference was in Discord's POV at the end. Then realized.. 'time'.. that would make much more sense. Is the spelling on purpose?
3381699
Glad you like the new cover - I'm really pleased with it, too. I can't believe I forgot about that picture, especially after all the time I spent drawing it while sitting around in waiting rooms or on the bus (it's pencil I colored on the computer).
This bothered me, too, but I preferred it to interfering too much with the perspective of the buildings and breaking up that diagonal flow. I gambled on it looking interesting and different enough that most people would click it.
Oh ho ho, you'll just have to see... But I'll give you a hint: Equestria is a looooooong way away, but maybe not too long... This next chapter will introduce some more complications and mysteries, however (at least once I've figured out exactly how to portray them, logistically).
Yes. In this interpretation, he lives in a kind of abstract possibility space (like a library with every possible book, or the infinite number of typing monkeys) where everything would seem frozen forever, because past and future are just more unique configurations of the universe, so naturally time wouldn't make much sense to a being like that. But what fun is there in making sense...?
3381899 Wonder if Discord's dicking around with the ponies is kind of a return on what he views as them dicking around with him. Like, they tried introducing this concept of 'time' to a being for which such a thing didn't exist, and he was like "No way they can be serious about this. Since they're all such pranksters, I'm going to joke around a little too!" Or something along those lines.
i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6755964672/hC25812FE/
eleven chapters of greatness. heres to many more
3479752
You should see all the stuff I cut out... I didn't want it to get too complicated...
3412349
Oops, meant to reply to this earlier but I got so much crap going on...
Haha, I like that idea. This is all actually gonna connect up with something else I've got planned regarding the origin of Equestria and how it's related to Earth, and the function Discord is actually performing for Equestria since his "reformation." I'll hint at it during the next interlude several chapters from now, of which I currently have a few disconnected paragraphs.
3439195
Thanks! I've got the whole thing planned out, although I don't know how many chapters that'll actually end up being, and how many little detours or side-adventures that might involve. I really just dove into this without knowing what I'm doing, since I wanted to try something looser and more luxuriant and less plot-driven than the graphic novel stuff I normally do, and now I'm retroactively trying to shape it into something a little more solid and focused.
I was left feeling lost much of this chapter. I appreciate that you're sophisticated but I'm not sure making your writing intentionally obtuse is a good idea.
3520694
Shoot, sorry about that. It was supposed to give the feeling of being thrown into an unfamiliar environment, but I did a lot of editing and cut a lot of extraneous stuff, and added some more passages of physical activity, specifically to avoid making it hard to understand.
3537583
Part of me worries the problem lies less with your writing and more with me being dumb.
A little late to the picky-party, I know, but I do have some help to offer.
A good rule of thumb for "thy" and "thine" (also "my" and "mine) is to adapt the relationship between the articles "a" and "an:" if the word would normally be preceded with "an," then you probably want to use "thine" or "mine."
As with "a" and "an," it has more to do with how the words flow in pronunciation than it does a hard-and-fast rule of "always use 'an' before a word starting with a vowel, always 'a' for words starting with consonants" since there are exceptions like "a uniform" and "an hour."
"Thine" is also a one-for-one replacement of "yours:" "This is yours" becomes "this is thine," and so on.
Two of the stories on my "stories I want to write one of these days" list includes tributes to Robert E. Howard and HP Lovecraft written in that lovely early-20th-century pulp style they helped immortalize. The former would be a sword-and-sorcery adventure, of course, but I wanted the latter to be an earth-pony scholar investigating the antediluvian history of Equestria, and unearthing maddening ancient horrors of the world (it's humans, okay?) that Celestia and Luna tried to keep under wraps. So yeah, for me this chapter was pretty much 9,000 words of "get out of my head!"
3686167
Haha yeah, I figure it only makes sense that it should be some kind of vulnerability, or at least sensitive in an unpleasant way. Something hard on the outside but (more than likely) filled with delicate nerve tissue? Sounds awfully familiar...
3700517
Thanks for these - Yeah, I was just going by what's in in my big Shakespeare omnibus, but that dude was definitely into playing fast and loose with the rules, and Luna would almost certainly be more grammatically proper than someone who spent so much time writing zany cartoon idiots. I'll go over it again and see what I can punch up.
I would totally read that Lovecraft-inspired story you mentioned, though...
I was tangentially thinking of Lovecraft with this chapter, specifically with the statue in the saddlebags, but it's definitely coming through even more than I anticipated... Humans are necessarily involved in some way, but the relationship I've set up between the two worlds is (I'm hoping) more original and interesting than most takes on it, and is actually (very) expanded from a TCB story I started a while back.
Now I just have to get everything to start joining up in the actual story...
thinkies...
3863212
The name of the story is chosen advisedly.
But you should see all the stuff I cut out.
3863395
advisedly...
3863395
No, but seriously now, this, this is a great story and I like this little... wordplay.
xD
This.. story.
This character.
This!
And dear Celestia, these tangents! The tangents this guy/mare goes on are sometimes just funny, even if they are perfectly logical.
I've actually been looking for a story like this for some time, it's slow(FINALLY!!!! :OOO), interesting, very(if not too much) detailed and actually logical, although, I have nothing against illogical logicality(not the same thing as illogicality, or in other words, chaos), it still miffs me a bit when authors don't just do the.. 'right' thing and deviate from the norm into some extreme or another to just make the story more interesting(which often times actually fails).
I really like the slow pacing, as almost every other story is just, well, ACTION!, and then gets into the same row as most other HiE's.
I don't really get why so many authors/readers say that they want to see/will_soon_put action, movement, fast paced combat into the story! As those actually, in my opinion, don't fit into Equestria at all.
The fact that the main character goes off into these tangents and that these tangents are philosophical may also be a plus as I'm a philosopher myself ^^.
Oh, look, I'm rambling! Anyways, one of the best.. stories I've read in a while, props. Also, nice art.
You can consider this a(n un)biased review if you like :D.
3863395
Kind of ironic really...
3878954
Thanks, that means a lot to hear! I'm really glad you're enjoying it. I did want to do something different and use it as an excuse to write about a lot of stuff I think about all the time.
3881252
You should go read the last comment in that thread. It's kinda tongue-in-cheek, but I'm going to use a few of the sentences from it later on.
3883404
I did read it, that's why I posted that comment...
*Mysticue
Good news. I was afraid it would share the fate of A Sentimental Journey.
4141840
Not if I have anything to say about it! I planned the whole damn thing out, so it'd be kind of a waste if I didn't.
I can't find the clip for this, but say t with me, "That was REALLY stupid!"
4703767
Well, we all contain multitudes, the poets say
4703822
Yeah, it seems like a pretty ridiculous thing to write on the face of it, but one of the reasons I'm writing this story is to think about, and get other people to think about, dorm-room stuff like "why things that never happen, never happen," or "what is it about impossible things that makes them impossible?" etc.
Stay tuned—I'm actually in a coffee shop right now working on the next chapter.
This story, it's interesting to say the least. I really appreciate the attention to detail in your writing
4715500
Thanks, it's sort of supposed to be an exercise in really close observation. I'm relatively new to writing so I'm really just figuring this all out as I go along, but I'm glad you think it's interesting.