3. The Axe For The Frozen Sea
I.D. INJECTOR DOE
That Indestructible Something
By Chatoyance
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3. The Axe For The Frozen Sea
"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us."
- Franz Kafka
His name was Malus Crown. At least that was the name he used, the name his people called him by. No one in his employ thought for a moment that it was his real name. He was wealthy, more than wealthy, rich beyond all dreams of avarice, or so it was whispered. If true, he did not have complete control over his treasure - there were times he clearly was pressed for access to resources. But in the end, even the most extravagant expenses were as nothing to him.
They said that Mr. Crown had been somebody, once, somebody very famous, very known. The rumor was that he had arranged the appearance of his own death so as to vanish from the stage of the world. It was true that he looked familiar, but everyone in his employ knew to never mention it - those that had any hint were quickly let go, and this was not something anyone wanted. Mr. Malus Crown paid very, very well.
He was a thin man, tall, almost gaunt. His blond hair was long and oddly scraggly. He walked with a curious gait, almost mechanical at times. He always wore tennis shoes, or shoes made of canvas, even with the most expensive of fine suits.
Mr. Crown was on a quest. He seemed to believe that he could see something no other person could, and as bizarre and ridiculous as that was, only a fool would scoff in the face of someone who paid as handsomely as Malus Crown did.
"Show me the closeup again." Malus shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He never sat still long, and always he sat tilted on one cheek. The running bet was that he suffered from hemorrhoids. His spindly, bony finger tapped nervously on the arm of his large leather chair. "No, the face. The face one!"
Guillaume dutifully slid his finger over the iPad he carried, and changed the image currently being displayed on the wall-sized projection monitor. The shriveled face of the corpse of Franz Kafka filled the screen. It looked like a sculpture made of beef jerky.
Malus leaned forward in his overstuffed chair, tapping his chin with his hand. "Picture In Picture. Put up Canterlot Wedding, part two, somewhere near the end."
Guillaume put down the iPad and switched to the Mac on the desk. He nodded to Thibault, always surly, sitting at his own machine, and the bulky man rolled his eyes as he ran the video stream. Thibault was willing to take Mr. Crown's money, and he was loyal to his wallet, but it was clear that he thought his employer a pathetic madman.
Images of ponies dominated the right half of the vast screen now. "A little further, more, more.... wait! Right there!" Mr. Crown waved his clenched hand.
The head of a twisted and strange cartoon creature filled the wall monitor. Its insectoid eyes glowed green, its skin was some shade of dark. The head was vaguely equine with vampire-like fangs, and oddly a horn, like a unicorn, only perforated, as though it were made of swiss cheese. The edge of a beetle-like translucent wing could be seen, near the edge of the image. It looked like some terrible cross between a unicorn and a vampire and a bug.
Mr. Crown stood up, and approached the screen. He looked from the right side to the left, where Kafka's leathern corpse lay, and then back again. "Nineteen Twenty-Four. Does it go forward too? Is there a forward... that's the question. It goes backward, that much is clear. If it doesn't..."
"Mr. Crown, sir? Is that... is that what you see?" Guillaume was by far the brighter of the two who served Malus. He was intrigued by his employer, and not so willing as Thibault to dismiss everything strange as madness. Malus Crown was interesting, if nothing else, and if he did want for sanity, the strange consistency of his eccentricity was intriguing.
Malus Crown turned and stared at his man, wondering whether or not to answer him, and how. Finally he made his decision. "Yes, Guillaume. Though not as a cartoon image, not abstract and whimsical. Imagine one of those things - " He gestured with an arm towards the animated side of the split screen "only dried, dead and utterly and completely real. As a thing that had once been alive. The cartoon is a pale imitation."
"And you see this? You see this thing in the casket?"
Crown returned to his chair, and carefully sat. "Yes."
Thibault spoke up, a rare thing. "I saw this movie once. Had bug men in it, and all the signs were changed when you looked through these special sunglasses. Roddy Piper, the wrestler was in it. Had a fucking great fight in an alley. You could only see the bug guys if you had the glasses."
Crown and Guillaume stared at Thibault. He hardly ever said anything, and now this.
"The guy who made 'The Thing' did it." Thibault seemed uncomfortable now. "It's good. The movie."
Malus turned back and nodded. "John Carpenter. 'They Live'."
"Yeah. That's the one." Thibault cracked his massive knuckles.
"Something like that, actually. Very perspicacious of you, Thibault. That is very close to what is happening for me, only without the need for special sunglasses." Malus tried to lean back in his chair, then suddenly jerked forward, grimacing as if he had felt pain. He always sat at the edge of the seat, and never settled in.
"What? So we're being invaded or something?" Guillaume raised an eyebrow. Thibault hardly had produced more than a grunt and the occasional 'Yes sir' in the past three months, and now he was a positive chatterbox.
Mr. Crown rested his chin on a fist, leaning to the side in his chair, every bit the king on his throne. "I considered that, but I do not think so. This is something much more subtle, and strange... and while I have my theories, I am not quite ready to state them."
Guillaume softly, almost imperceptibly, shook his head in disbelief. In all of the past many months, this exchange was the most enlightening he had heard with regard to what the possibly mad Mr. Crown believed and thought. It was fascinating, if completely bizarre. Guillaume remained silent, in hopes that the conversation would continue, and more entertaining strangeness might be revealed.
A loud gurgle came from the stomach of Mr. Malus Crown. "Ah." He got up from his leather chair and stood. "You can both take the rest of the day off. That's all for now. If anything comes up, I'll be in the puppy room."
Of all of Mr. Crown's many eccentricities, perhaps his obsession with puppies was the greatest. He had an entire wing built as a paradise for what must be two dozen dogs now. They utterly loved him, they completely adored him. He personally attended their every need himself, feeding, grooming and playing with them. Attending his puppies took up the majority of his day, yet it never seemed to wear him out. If anything, he seemed less gaunt and haggard for every hour he spent in their company. Puppies and whatever strange, mad quest he was on. This was his life.
That and his electronics. Oh, Mr. Crown loved his computers, and he was a master with them. Very insistent on the make and model of any piece of equipment his people used, and he seemed to know everything about even the most obscure product in the line. He had terminated the employment of one of the staffers simply because he had bought the wrong phone.
Guillaume stretched and yawned. Thibault had left the moment Mr. Crown had left the room. The monitors would need to be turned off and the machines locked. Guillaume set about the task with resignation. Thibault would probably just break everything anyway.
It was a hell of a way to make money, but it was not the worst, nor the strangest rich madman that Guillaume had worked for. The job was insane, but easy, sometimes exciting - like the business in Prague - and it paid unbelievably well. Mr. Malus Crown could be as batty as he wanted to be, Guillaume had long ago decided.
As long as the paychecks poured forth.
──── ∆ ────
The smell of the pork chops was making Gregoria gag even before she reached the table. They didn't smell good, they didn't even smell like pork chops to her. They smelled like death, like burned skin and rotting flesh. The appearance was no better - the slabs of glutton and bone sat on the serving dish like small road accidents, glistening with pale, greasy ichor, contaminating the broccoli. Dad - who did most of the cooking - had plated the two together.
'Contaminating the broccoli?' The words hung in Gregoria's mind like dead men on a scaffold. Dread filled her, and her heart began to speed up as if she were being chased. Broccoli. Gregoria did not particularly like broccoli, or vegetables in general for that matter - she ate them sparingly and always under protest. Spinach was ghastly, salads pointless, beans were alright, especially in a meaty chili, and the occasional carrot might be tolerated on the periphery of a large slab of beefy pot roast. For color. It could be scraped off, later.
The broccoli was the only thing on the pork chop dish that was the least bit appetizing. The smell of the broccoli was making Gregoria's mouth fill with saliva and her belly grumble and complain with desire. It was unbelievably wonderful, except for the revolting stench of the pork chops. Dinner was madness, it was insanity. Gregoria's tastes had turned upside down.
The salad, in the large ceramic bowl, featured cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, slices of celery and green onions. It was the single most enticing thing at the dinner table. Gregoria found her attention enraptured by the simple contents. Every aspect of her being was shouting that this, this green abomination, was food. Real food. Savory and filled with muzzle-watering deliciousness - while the pork chops, her previous favorite, might as well have been a dump taken right on the table.
She refused to cry. Breaking down now, at the table, would be a defeat. She had been strong thus far, facing her impossible situation with determination and fortitude, she felt. Considering. But now, to have her very tastes in food altered, possibly forever, it... she could feel a tear welling up, and a catch in her throat.
"Are you OK?" Father was expressing concern. Everyone else had taken their portions with rapidity, Gregoria had just sat there, staring and looking abject. "Would you... like some... salad?" He said the last word with some surprise, but had clearly been following her gaze. Gregoria nodded, silent. Leafy greens were deposited in the bowl to the side of her plate. Gregoria kept nodding until the bowl was almost overflowing. Her father seemed amazed.
"You're spoiling her. Let her serve herself. Goodness, Harry, she's not an invalid!" Thanks mom, thought Gregoria. Her mother could be such a mean thing sometimes.
"I think she's had a tough day today. A little kindness won't spoil anything." Harold Samson fixed his wife with a firm look, and she tended to her dinner. "Want a pork chop, hon?" Her father was being super nice, which was the only good thing that had happened to her since she woke up. Tears falling, Gregoria shook her head.
"Just salad... and some of the broccoli. From the top, where the pork didn't get it?" Gregoria felt very hungry, and even more unsure about trying to serve herself with clumsy hooves. The only other alternative was using her mouth like the characters did on Friendship Is Magic. There was no way to tell how that would be perceived by her family.
"What? Are you going vegetarian on us now? First you cause a big fuss this morning, stay home all day, and now pork chops are too good for you? Your father went to a lot of trouble to..."
"Monica, leave the poor girl alone. I mean it." Father wasn't usually so protective, but then Gregoria wasn't normally so obviously disturbed and upset.
"Fine." Gregoria's mother pouted and sulked as she picked at her dinner.
"You just enjoy your dinner, Sweetie. Whatever it is, things will get better." Her father smiled, gently at her, and returned to his own meal. Gregoria appreciated the kindness but his words chafed - she had no guarantee things would ever get any better, and a great deal of fear they would get far worse. But he meant well. And he had served her up food, sparing her having to see what everyone made of her fumbling with hooves or serving herself with her teeth.
Gregoria appraised her meal. Bowl of salad, no dressing, plate of steamed broccoli. Normally, as a human, facing such a thing would have amounted to an insult. It greatly disturbed Gregoria that her stomach was rumbling like a construction vehicle, and she had needed to swallow her own drooling saliva twice already. Although the mortal stench of seared flesh was still making her feel ill, she was fascinated by the scent of the greens in front of her. She had never thought green things even had a smell.
The broccoli dominated, steamed and hot, the rich, savory scent filled her new pony nostrils and seemed positively fattening. Decadent. Her tongue craved to engage with it. But more surprising was the tang of celery in the simple salad, the summery comfort of the cabbage and lettuce, and the sharp jab of the green onions. The tomato hit her the way a steak might have, just a day ago. Somehow her new senses could pick up the qualities of vegetative matter that her human nose was blind to. Gregoria was frantic to begin eating.
She couldn't hold a fork.
She had managed to scrape her napkin into her lap, the wooden dining chair was very uncomfortable to her equine posterior, even sitting - as she must to protect her tail - on one flank. But the issue of cutlery was beyond the capacity of her hooves. She could paw at her fork all day to no avail. What was she supposed to do now?
Gregoria tried to look at the situation as a puzzle. It was better than breaking down and running from the room. Probably, anyway. She had gotten away with a tube top hung loosely around her neck. That had been sufficient to convince her family that she was properly dressed. How could she get away with the matter of eating?
On the show, on Friendship Is Magic, earthponies like Applejack ate with their mouths right off of the plate. They didn't use forks or spoons, though they could somehow lift mugs. There was no way Gregoria could lift her fork except with her teeth, or with both hooves pinching the implement, and either method would be clumsy and likely end up with food all over the floor. There really was only one answer, and that was to bury her muzzle in her meal. It didn't seem likely that this would be ignored, though. So far, whatever prevented her family from noticing her change seemed to require some kind of misdirection, rather like how professional magicians worked. The tube top around Gregoria's neck seemed to be just enough to permit whoever saw her to tell themselves that she was dressed.
Gregoria decided to test this. She was starving, and it was all she could think of.
The golden yellow mare put her right hoof onto the table, bending her fetlock so that her hoof covered her fork. That should be roughly equivalent to the suggestion that she was 'holding' the fork, at the least she was touching it. After a quick glance at the faces of her family, Gregoria gingerly lowered her muzzle to her salad bowl and took a mouthful of its contents.
Her head raised, she chewed the cabbage and lettuce and celery and tomato, the rich and savory flavors filling her mouth. It was like no salad she had ever tasted. There was no need for dressing, the greenery was by itself beyond delicious. There were high minty celery notes, a low satisfying leafy delectability that gave her the same feeling as a juicy cut of steak, a piquant bite from the onions that ravaged her super-sensitive nose, and a sweet yet fierce sapidity from the tomato slices. Her senses had changed as much as the rest of her body, and very likely also the way her new brain interpreted those senses.
She looked around. Her father smiled at her. Her mother was busy cutting off a bite of meat, the sight of her actually eating it made Gregoria's stomach turn. Her sister was oblivious. Apparently, her guess was right. Gregoria lifted her hoof from the fork, and pinched her napkin between both forelegs and brought it to her muzzle. She dabbed her muzzle, and lowered the napkin to what roughly equated to a lap on her new body. No reaction. She reasoned that to them, she was still a normal twenty-six year old woman, sitting at the table eating ordinarily. They saw what they wanted to see, or what they were being forced somehow to see, and all that was required to make this strange effect work was some suggestion of the commonplace to work off of.
Gregoria wondered what it would take to break their curious illusion of normality, or even if it was possible at all. She decided that she really didn't want to, all things considered. She didn't want to imagine how her mother would react if she actually could see a yellow cartoonish pony at the foot of the table. No matter what, the result would not be favorable.
The rest of the meal passed relatively uneventfully. Gregoria's mother complained that she hadn't even tried the pork chops, and her sister had made some comment about how weird she was being today. Drinking from her glass was only slightly troublesome - gripping it between fetlocks worked well enough, and again, nobody seemed to notice at all.
Cleaning up gave Gregoria a momentary fright - her only means for taking dishes to the washer was by carrying them with her teeth. This provided a very curious moment that haunted Gregoria for the rest of the evening. After being scolded for not helping her sister, Gregoria had almost instinctively reached out with her muzzle and taken hold of a plate in order to carry it to the dishwasher. In that moment, her mother had briefly gasped, blinked, and then seemed to settle into a kind of trance for a few seconds. Then she had turned away, slowly, regaining herself. "Good. Your sister shouldn't have to clear the table alone. We're a family here after all."
While Gregoria helped Greta clear the table and fill the dishwasher, she wondered whether or not, for just a moment, the strange blindness to what had happened had failed briefly for her mother. It only happened once - after that incident, Gregoria found she could pick up anything with her mouth and her mother did not flinch or blink at the act in any way. It was as if she were now immune to that aspect of Gregoria's pony existence, presumably seeing every use of muzzle and teeth as her daughter manipulating things with hand and arm.
Some boundary to the pony blindness had been reached, and her mother had perhaps been shaken in her illusions, but then corrected herself and now the matter was stable and settled. If something similar had happened to her father and her sister, she had not noticed, in any case the matter seemed settled for them as well.
Gregoria remembered something from the show, that ponies often carried things on their backs. They seemed to have superhuman balance. Gregoria picked up the last plate on the table, and twisted her neck so that she could lay the plate across the middle of her back to see what the reaction would be, and whether or not she could balance it there. She was beginning to find a fascination with how the strange pony blindness worked, and it was useful research besides, because it would determine what she could get away with in her new existence.
The plate stayed as if it were glued to her back. Her earlier clumsiness had gradually given way to a confident ability that now surprised her. Apparently her new brain and body learned very quickly, and she was adapting rapidly. Gregoria walked to the dishwasher. Greta lifted the plate right off of her back as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do. She acted as if Gregoria had handed her the plate. Perhaps that is exactly what Greta imagined had occurred. Greta closed the dishwasher and set the buttons. Dinner was over.
After the first few minutes, Gregoria excused herself from the family viewing of 'Game Of Thrones'. She couldn't handle it. The tension, the gore, it shocked and disturbed her as if she were seeing the worst tragedy of her entire life. It was literally beyond her capacity to enjoy or stand. She felt harmed by it, shaken to her core. She made some excuse of feeling tired, reiterated her mother's thought that she might have come down with some bug, and repaired to her room on the pretense of getting some sleep so as to beat whatever cold or sniffle had her down.
In her room, Gregoria pulled her pillow down from her still unmade bed and clutched it between her forelegs as she lay on the floor on her side. She rocked back and forth with a push of her left hindleg against the bed frame. The rocking and clutching the pillow seemed to help. It was hard to get the blood and death from the television show out of her head. She felt traumatized. This was another thing lost - 'Game of Thrones' had been her favorite. It would be a problem trying to get out of watching the rest of it with her family, but there was no way she could handle it now.
"Swirl!" The expletive had not come out properly. Gregoria tried to say other swear words and insults, but they all came out as infantile cutesy things like 'Cinnamon' and 'Muffins!' She remembered how earlier she had used 'everypony' instead of 'everybody'. Put together with the changes in how she perceived smell and taste, as well as the incredible speed at which she was adapting to all of this, there was only one conclusion possible.
Her brain, being a part of her body, had changed too. Gregoria spent some fruitless time trying to determine if she was still herself, then ultimately realized that the entire question was absurd and impossible to answer. She had been transformed into a cartoonish species of pony from a children's show on television. She was what and who she was, and worrying about whether pony Gregoria was still human Gregoria was not something that was even possible to determine. How would she even tell? Her family would be no help, because they saw her as she was before. She could be no judge of her own mind, because she was too busy existing, thinking and being. She was too close to the problem.
The best she could do would be to catalog any obvious differences from what she thought she remembered about herself, and arbitrarily hope that her memory was true. So far, all of the differences seemed to be entirely with regard to her senses and some elements of her speech. These were relatively minor issues compared to the vast edifice of personality and identity. There was the issue of watching 'Game Of Thrones', her tolerance for violence, cruelty and psychopathy had been vastly shortened, but this was in keeping with a cartoon about ponies for little girls. It wasn't as if she hated her former favorite show, or that her opinions about it had altered. She just couldn't stomach people getting stabbed through the eye socket with daggers anymore. Or disemboweled. But even if she couldn't bear to watch it, she still felt the program was brilliant.
Gregoria finally decided that, within the context of having been transformed into an entirely alien creature, she was still herself. It was only reasonable and logical that her brain would change as much as any other part of her body, and considering everything, it was remarkable how little of who she was had been altered.
Her essential self was, as far as she could tell, untouched. She needed to believe that, more than she needed even to cling to the hope of being transformed back. She needed to believe that within her was some indestructible something that represented her identity, and that this untouchable core was inviolate even should every other aspect become unrecognizable. She was Gregoria, whether she was Gregoria the human, or Gregoria the pony.
She might as well accept this to be true, any other belief seemed to lead only to hopelessness and the obliteration of any reason to keep going. Perhaps her tastes had changed, perhaps she could not tolerate violent media anymore, perhaps she swore like a cartoon character, perhaps she loathed meat and drooled at the thought of vegetables now - none of these things mattered. She was herself because she MUST be herself. No other possibility or viewpoint was allowable in such a circumstance, lest despair conquer her entirely.
With that settled, at least for now, and with her shaken nerves finally calmed, Gregoria set about trying to make her bed. It was a terribly difficult task, at first, but as she worked, she found it growing easier. Her rapidly adapting body and mind now had fairly excellent coordination, and she discovered that if she just let go of fussing about how she was doing things, and simply used what she had to the best of her ability, everything went much more smoothly. Gregoria recalled watching a TED talk on YouTube about a disabled person who had taken the view that all any creature can do is to make use of what they have. Accepting things and then making maximal, optimal utility of what can be used bypassed all the initial pitfalls of facing disability.
Gregoria decided to give up grieving for her lost hands and instead just do whatever was necessary to make her bed. She used her teeth and hooves in whatever way worked, and lost herself in the effort. Once she had done that, before she knew it, she was finished. It was not an entirely bad job, in fact. Not perfect, but serviceable.
She backed up, and stared at her bed. It was made. She had made her own bed with nothing more than hooves and teeth. Sweet Luna but her teeth and jaw were strong! And hooves, she decided, at least the ones in the front, were not as crippling as she had feared. They were, after all, just big fingernails, and her forelegs were her fingers. There was an expected dexterity there, because she was well used to using her fingers to manipulate objects. She now had two very long, incredibly strong fingers with large nails at the ends. If she sat, she could pinch and push and hold things very effectively. Her neck and jaw acted like a serpentine arm and vice-grip hand. If she didn't whine, and she didn't fight herself, it was possible to get a lot done.
Gregoria turned to look at herself in the mirror. Her human clothing was absurd on her pony body. The skirt had ridden up over her rear end, exposing it entirely. The ring of the tube-top encircled her neck looking more like a tight scarf than a proper top. Not a member of her family had noticed. It was enough that the fabric was there at all. It was what they needed in order to see what they wanted to see. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, no longer fearing her new body, Gregoria resented how stupid she looked with a crumpled ring of skirt around her waist, and a rolled band of tube top around her neck.
With effort, Gregoria managed to peel off the tube-top and scrape the skirt from her body. She stood in front of the mirror again and shook herself, watching as her mane and tail swirled about her. Currently, she wasn't in a state of panic. She felt calm, filled with real hope that she might manage to solve all of this. In just one day she had cracked much of whatever rules controlled how others saw her, cleaned up her own mess, washed herself, survived dinner, and finally made her own bed. Gazing at her cartoon-cute face and soft animal coat, she even had to admit she was not ugly.
The fact was that Friendship Is Magic ponies were pretty, they had been designed to be so, and she was very attractive as a pony. Her colors were pleasant enough, and the form of her body and face were charming, if utterly unhuman. Gregoria had no wish to stay this way, she did not want to be a pony like her friend Rachel did and being transformed against her will felt like an act of war against her. That said, for the moment, standing in triumph after a day that surely would have broken most people entirely, she found she could gaze into her own eyes, her purple pony eyes, and now, not need to look away.
She could do this. She could survive until she could find an answer - and a cure. There must be an explanation out there somewhere, there must be a reason this happened, and there must be a solution to her new state of being. That only made sense - things didn't just happen 'because'. That reason was out there, and if she was going to ever be human again, she needed to learn how it was that she was transformed, and why. To accomplish that, she would need to be stronger than whatever life decided to throw at her.
At the beginning of the day, Gregoria had not been sure she was up to the task, she had not been sure that the human spirit was strong enough, in anyone, to survive such an insult.
In this moment, though, smiling her pony smile into the mirror, Gregoria felt differently than she had in the morning. The human spirit was indomitable. She could do this. Pony body and brain notwithstanding. Anything could be changed about her, and it would not matter. She was indestructible, immutable, imperishable.
Tomorrow should be afraid of her. She was coming for it, and it would reveal some answers!
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So, it's a perception filter?
The plot thickens! This is turning into a right proper adventure. Especially that bit with the affection-loving Mr. Crown - There was a fun, portentous, two-fisted rhythm to it that made me imagine the scene as taking place on an imposing yacht, steaming through the fog across a choppy, moonlit ocean.
Do I detect foreshadowing? I'm reminded of the Doctor Who episode where Shakespeare saw through their universally placating Psychic Paper credentials as actually being blank.
2165907
It looks like this is a very strong perception filter which can - under extreme conditions - be somewhat dislodged. The most interesting thing to me though was this:
I don't think those are minutes...
2165907
My thoughts exactly! I mean, it meets most of the criteria.
It doesn't make her new form invisible, given how others can still interact with her, but instead it makes her changes "unnoticeable" until someone is forced to acknowledge there is something special about her, like when she grabbed the plate with her teeth.
Also, given the change is apparently not limited to ponies only, I would guess Malus Crown would be a Diamond Dog, given his obsession with other dogs and shiny new things (electronics).
2165925
And I'm reminded of the Christmas special where the Psychic Paper just gave up.
"The Doctor is universally recognized as a responsible and mature adult."
They Live is a very strange, very fun movie. And Mr. Crown feels the need to spend most of the day around dozens of puppies who absolutely adore him? Nope, not suspicious at all.
2165952>>2165907>>2165976
Thanks to the comments on this story, I started reading Heavenly Nostrils. It contains a great concept explaining how extraordinary creatures such as unicorns can live undisturbed in our world: Shield of Boringness (click comic strip for larger view). I guess it can be categorized as a perception filter, and isn't it what happens in this story?
Well, anyone who cares for a few dozen puppies can't be all bad. Even if he is using them for a food source. Unless that's just what you want us to think...
In any case, good for Gregoria! Angst will get her nowhere. Though I do wonder how her brony friend will perceive her...
Superb writing as always, but I really can't picture Kafka as a changeling. "Die Verwandlung" is usually interpreted as an expression of the relationship Kafka had with his father. Even if one might understand this as the feelings of an outcast drone towards queen Chrysalis, I really doubt a changeling would have written "Vor dem Gesetz" or "In der Strafkolonie".
2165952
1924 is the year Franz Kafka died.
2165976
The acknowledgements contain a link to the Paradise setting, which employs such a filter. So I'd say that deduction is correct. But I believe that Mr. Crown is actually a changeling. He eats the puppies' love. Mr. Crown sitting behavior implies strongly a tail and wings as well. Also, if Kafka wrote stuff like Metamorphosis because he was himself a changeling, then I'd say there is more stuff already in circulation which has it basis on creatures from our MLP. Maybe Gregoria meets an alicorn in the future?
I kinda vote for Mr. Crown being a changeling as well. A bit strange that he cannot actually take human form as changelings did with pony forms (maybe it's too big of a change to deal with?), since he's uncomfortable with sitting position. Again a bit strange, since ponies in the show sat on various objects, including floor, and it didn't seem uncomfortable. And I am not talking about Lyra-style sitting.
Damn, suddenly i am not sure if i want to be a pony... Will it reduce my Sarcasm and Cyniscism reserves? And what about my dark sense of humour? Will those be weakened?
Also, doesn’t ponies have "velcro-magic" on their hoofs to let them grab things?
Yay update!!!
Good story so far!
That word sounds awfully familiar. You wouldn't be making a reference here, would you?
"It's" should be "its" in both cases, since expanding it to "it is" doesn't make sense in context.
2179191
FIXED! Thank you for the catch.
Also, WALLACE SHAWN! My dinner with PONIES!
Obvious changeling is obviously eating love.
Hm, that little slip with her mother is making me start to wonder if my mad hypothesis could actually be *correct*. It does really seem that whatever is going on, Gregoria is the "normal" one. Everyone else definitely seems to be affected by *something* which is causing them not to be able to preceive her properly. Very interesting indeed. I really wonder what this would be like for someone who became a unicorn or pegasus. How would the preception filter mask the use of magic or flight?
So... Kafka might have been a Changeling? Odd. Even odder is the fact that Mr Crown is immune to the illusion magic or whatever it is that makes everyone else convinced that the afflicted are still humans. I wonder how long this has been going on? More importantly why is it happening? I'm wondering if the cause-to-effect chain is backwards and the reason this fan-verse's Lauren Faust made the G4 ponies look as they do is because that is the being she sees in the mirror every day...
I notice Gregoria hasn't got her cutie mark yet but, as she's evidently a mid- to late-teen that isn't unprecedented. She's at the age when she can expect to find her special talent, though.
I love your world-building on the outlook of herbivores. I'm downright scared to use it in my own work because people prefer Fallout: Equestria and ponies who are like humans, but this is my HEADCANNON right here. Delicioso.
No comment, just giving an update on my slow progress through this story as I have time.
Right then! After a busy weekend and Monday, I think that it's time for another chapter or two.
Oh, we're looking on on someone else.
Ah, the person from the opening, it looks like.
Huh. So it works through pictures, too, not just in person? Intersting.
"Thibault was willing to take Mr. Crown's money, and he was loyal to his wallet, but it was clear that he thought his employer a pathetic madman."
Now now, Thibault. Mr. Crown is far too rich to be mad. He's eccentric. :)
Ahhh… So not exactly a butterfly, then. :)
Hm. Though, depending on the nature of changelings in this universe, the deception might have been much easier than it is for those transformed into ponies. Some universes limit changelings to roughly pony sizes and shapes, though, so we'll have to see.
And Mr. Crown's mutterings are intriguingly cryptic.
Hmm… The puppies. Coupled with the hunger and his observed rejuvenation, I'm suspecting that he's a changeling too and is using them as a food source. Given his discomfort, I'd hypothesize that his transformation ability is not perfect; either he is using a flawed human form or is in an equinoid form affected by the perception distortion.
Hm. If Kafka was a changeling (and a queen, no less, it looks like) and Mr. Crown is one, the possibility is raised that Gregoria is one as well and is only in earth pony form because… she believes that she should be in earth pony form, or something. I believe that more data is needed to develop this hypothesis.
Ah. And yes. The Porkchops of Doom make their entrance.
I'm rather hoping that Mr. Crown has a website or something that Gregoria can find with a bit of googling. Otherwise, the chances of him extending his protection over Gregoria before something disastrous happens seem unpleasantly slim.
"Somehow her new senses could pick up the qualities of vegetative matter that her human nose was blind to."
Well, I'd imagine that you've just gotten a lot of sensory equipment remapped (and possibly some added). With so much of the system that was previously dedicated to the nuances of meat now able to be summarized by a small box that goes "Ick", a lot of space has been freed up that could be used to increase the resolution of analysis of vegetable matter.
And more information on the perception distortion! It's clearly quite a complicated process. I wonder if the distortion carries its own processing or uses the brains of the observers?
Ah, and it's not perfect. Curious.
It works with multiple observers at once, including in still pictures when both what to look for and where are made known. It's not just a simple S.E.P. field. It could be a very strong one, though… But it would have to be very strong, or be capable of attaching itself to recordings. Hm. If two people watched Gregoria eating with her hoof on the fork, told to watch her fingers, and then separated and asked about Gregoria's exact movements, would they give different answers? And, now that I think about it, it can't be a simple illusion, even a strong one, because then recording devices would simply record the illusion if they could see it at all.
Hm. So… a strong and dynamic, possibly even living, S.E.P. field capable of spreading itself? …Or already all-pervasive? Perhaps this is a simulation? I need more data! :D
"She was beginning to find a fascination with how the strange pony blindness worked, and it was useful research besides, because it would determine what she could get away with in her new existence."
Yay!
And yet another place where Gregoria's new nature conflicts with her old. Though I suppose that, if the protagonist was a Buddhist monk or something who merely said "Hm. This is curious" and didn't have to adjust much except meditation positions, the story wouldn't be nearly so interesting.
…Though now I'm wondering how someone like that really would react in such a situation. And this is why it takes me so long to read a mere 5311 words of this story. :D
A relatively sensible approach to the issue of the potential identity crisis, at least. Though, of course, poor Gregoria still does not, I believe, have evidence to rule out that she is simply insane.
I wonder just how little clothing would be enough for the illusion of being fully dressed? It's unfortunately that Gregoria doesn't currently have any appropriately trustworthy observers.
Oh, hm, I just realized: withe perception distortion propagating through recordings, Gregoria might be able to spot other ponies on television and make contacts that way.
And the chapter ends on a positive note. :)
I'd better be going now, though. I keep making the mistake of thinking that reading less than six thousand words of this story won't take me much more time than reading six thousand words of the average story would (which isn't all that long). Hopefully it won't be another week before I get to the next chapter.
Well this is growing to be quite fascinating.
I love her attitude at the end of this chapter. Self-confidence!
You have a typo:
Perceive
Super late to the party but...
D E T E R M I N A T I O N
9553348
I... don't know what you mean. I've checked chapter 3 as best I can, and I seem to have spelled that word correctly, so... did I make a typo in a different chapter? Or... is this an Undertale meme?
9553510
Yes undertale