Eight
It turned out to be quite a walk. About halfway between the two temples Twilight started to show strain, and Luna unceremoniously picked up the statue with her mind and let it bob after them, despite Twilight’s protests.
The two reindeer babbled a lot on their way but didn't really say much, being a bit too nervous. For Luna the most interesting part was actually when the older one (who periodically needed support from the temple-fawn to walk) started trying to make the walk a sight-seeing trip. Her speech invariably turned from the usual historical and patriotic facts into personal notes like 'this is were I bought my hat, and at a quite nice price too I might say,' 'my daughter was conceived in this dancing hall, back when it wasn't a hairdresser's' or 'don't buy your bread here, Oh My Goddess, the baker is a terrible cheat and no loaf weighs what it should.' Luna smiled.
Her younger colleague, when not supporting the older one, who seemed to literally be her grandmother (paternal), commented on their path in her own way, and incidentally gave Twilight a pretty good picture of Life Of The Reindeer Teen In The Big(ger) City. It was strange the way that despite obviously being an uptown doe, Saga became happier about the whole city the closer they came to Hrimfaxi's temple – strange because the closer they got, the more the city started to resemble slum, something Twilight never had seen before. Well, she was aware it existed in some big cities that weren't Canterlot, but...
The temple stood dark and looming, befitting its patron. The old, bleached pillars of carved fir did most of the looming, while the shadows from the jutting roof and the enormous pile of antlers and skulls took care of the darking. Twilight shivered as she lifted her head and saw the reindeer skulls looking down at her.
”Good grief! It looks like a haunted stable on Nightmare Night!” she burst out.
Saga nodded enthusiastically. ”It does, doesn't it?" she beamed happily. "Isn't it totally awesome, Mistress Sparkle?!”
”Excuse me, but what's with the antler hill?” Twilight asked the older priestess as she poked them with her hoof.
”Oh, it is tradition to give your last cast-off antlers to Hrimfaxi when you die!” she explained. ”As a sort of thank-you gift for Hrimfaxi guiding you to the Summer Lands.”
”Or, I mean, your family gives us – I mean, you, Oh Goddess, the antlers,” Saga added. ”Seeing how you are dead and all. Though it would be neat if some dead reindeer took his antler here himself, but it never happened.”
”You save your cast-off antlers?” said Twilight. The reindeer – and princess Luna – nodded.
”They are a valuable part of you, after all. Back when I was here last time, you would carve them into beautiful or useful things and give your beloved ones,” the alicorn explained. ”Or rather, the ones from last year, because you never knew when you needed your last ones for the passing gift. Is that still done?”
The reindeer looked at each other.
”Not much, Oh My Goddess. Deer still give gifts, but they are more likely to just give the set of antlers,” said the old priestess.
”See, they are really valuable and can be sold,” said Saga. ”But you can also sell them yourselves and buy other gifts for the money.”
”Why are they valuable? Oh – I see! The horn – there is always magic in horns!” said Twilight and carefully lifted a set of greening antlers with her magic.
”Yeah, but they are useful in other ways as well. I mean, before there was plastic it was like very useful for making things,” said Saga.
Luna had to drag Twilight away from the antler-hill, but they did get inside after that. They placed the horrid statue outside, Luna and Twilight hoping somedeer would steal it.
Luna found it strange that while she had recoiled at the very idea of worship, the temple being in such a sorry state made her sad, ashamed, and somehow offended.
”I am sorry, Oh My Goddess,” said the priestess ”but there isn't much demand for our ceremonies any more, except for the neighboring reindeer and some traveling grazers who still perform the antler ceremony – and they have no money.”
Her old rheumy eyes gleamed. ”But when I was a very young fawn, there was still singing here, and reindeer gathering to give thanks for the moon and the stars and the northern lights, and praying for the darkness to cover them...”
”Why? The darkness, I mean?” said Twilight as she was studying an astronomical mobile trying to figure out the missing pieces.
The old reindeer shrank a little. ”I am afraid most of them were thieves, Mistress Sparkle. Darkness makes their profession somewhat easier, don't you see?” she said cautiously. Luna stiffened a bit at that.
”But nowadays, no one comes – and the roof is leaking, the doors are stuck ajar, the decorations pawned off...” the old vaja continued. ”The priestly sanctum sanctorum drafty and cold, we really could use a working toilet, the moon well is cracked and dried of all except slime -”
”MOON WELL?!” shouted Luna. ”You have a moon well in this place?!”
There was a dangerous tone to her voice which made Twilight drop the mobile. Their hostesses cringed at the shout.
”I'm sorry but it hasn't been used in like hundreds and hundreds of years... but we can change that if it pleases you My Goddess...” Saga quickly said.
This did not pacify Luna, quite the opposite.
”What's a moon well?” asked Twilight. And why does it make you so angry, my Princess..?
”Young Saga, my temple-fawn, let's go there, and tell lady Sparkle what a moon well is, since you are sorry it hasn't been in use,” said Luna, her voice full of mirth, her lips smiling, her eyes blazing.
The young doe cringed some more but showed them out the backyard. The older one followed hesitantly at a distance.
In the yard was a very wide and very old well. The stones were hardly visible under moss and lichen, and cracked with age. Twilight peered down into it as Saga pointed down. The bottom was covered with white snow, a deeper layer than that on the ground. It was dark and mucky down there. Jagged stones and what looked like blackened old branches poked up from the bottom.
”This... this is the moon well. It used to be full of water... so the moon could be mirrored in it, see?” Saga started to explain. ”And... it used to be... there was... long ago, we... I mean those priestesses back then... sacrificed reindeer to the moon in it.”
Twilight, aghast, turned to a Luna, her eyes still blazing, her lips falsely content.
”Because they would fall in... and land in the mirror image of the moon... and the walls are so steep and so slimy... you cannot climb up...” Saga continued.
”And it was hundreds of years ago, you say?” said Luna smoothly.
”Yes,” said Saga with a very small voice, ”it was hundreds of years ago.”
Luna nodded.
”Know one thing, cervine child carved of old pine,” Luna said as she started to shimmer with her magic, ”I never demanded this. Not even when wrapped in madness and hate and jealousy. Not even when I was Nightmare Moon.”
Her magic dug into the earth like a giant claw scooping up the whole well, the earth and stones and ice and old old bones, and she rose with it above the temple, her great wings flapping as she ascended into the sky, surveyed the sea outside, and slingshotted the whole mass into the sea. Then, she landed.
”If you didn't demand it, who came up with it?” Saga actually asked when her divine patron again trod the rather upset ground of the temple.
”Reindeer did," Luna said, her gaze turned inwards. "Oh, and all kinds of beings. Ponies. Cattle. The diamond dogs, always sophisticates, just tore the sacrifice apart and the congregation devoured it.”
Everyone stared.
”But why?” Twilight asked.
”Some were afraid of Nightmare Moon and thought she could harm them unless they bribed her," Luna explained. "Others thought... if this happened often enough, she would be free, and deliver them from their enemies with terror. As I once said, there is a reason my sister warped our battle into a fairy tale. So that no one would take it seriously and do horrible things like this.”
”Oh my... ” said Twilight. ”At Nightmare Night, when you sacrifice your candy to Nightmare Moon...”
”Yes,” said Luna. ”There is more than one way to warp the sinister to the innocent.”
”My Goddess,” said the old doe, ”what do we do with, erh, the hole?”
Everyone looked at it.
”I think you might actually have dislocated the structure of the temple, My Goddess,” Eira said as she peered curiously at it.
Luna looked embarrassed.
”Well, I suppose it will have to be renovated as well...” Luna mused. ”But I see water down the hole...”
”I don't think the actual spring was gone, after all we are close to a river,” Twilight said. ”Maybe it will be a well again – or a little lake.”
”We can make a new moon well,” Saga suddenly said, ”except not, y'know, killing reindeer in it.”
”No living, breathing, bleeding sacrifices!” said Luna and scowled.
The reindeer nodded hastily.
”Would flowers be OK?” Saga wondered. ”We could send them to the moon?”
”Flowers would be lovely!” said Luna and smiled.
The old doe cleared her throat. ”We could make libations... I mean, I have a very nice batch of nagoonberry liqueur in my sanctum sanctorum...” she said as she mimicked pouring something into the hole.
Luna's eyes perked up.
”Nagoonberry, you say? The only libations made will be down my throat! Show the way, oh My Priestess!” said Luna and marched into the temple. ”I wish... I wish I could use this, in some way. Some real way to help deer...” she started to explain to the priestess following her.
Saga sighed deeply and looked at Twilight.
”I thought she was gonna throw me down there, y'know? I was so afraid, though it would have been kinda awesome,” she said and looked at the hole, where more water was seeping forth.
”You have a rather strange definition of awesome,” said Twilight.
”Well, are you really that Twilight Sparkle?” said the doe.
”Yeah, unfortunately,” said Twilight and sighed. ”Don't tell me you think that is awesome as well!”
”Of course it is!” Saga gushed. ”Oh my goddess I have heard so much about you!” She bounced a little. Twilight looked on with disbelief.
”Twilight Sparkle, Skinfaxi's Shadow. The sadistic sorceress and sex-fiend. Awesome?” Saga nodded enthusiastically.
”Oh yes!” she said as she bounced some more.
”I summon demons and slay ponies with sorcery and enchant ponies' minds?” Twilight said.
”My friends will be so totally jelly when I tell them I met you!” Saga said happily.
”I seduce youths and maidens and take them to my castle dungeon where I have them devoured by giant venomous carnivorous demon-snails for fun. Awesome?” Twilight said.
Saga thought for a second or two, then nodded again.
”That is really awesome. My friends would be even more jelly if I was devoured by giant venomous carnivorous demon-snails for fun,” she said with a wistful smile.
”I highly doubt that,” said Twilight and face-hoofed.
Saga was silent for a while, then she said: ”Do you slowly dip them or keep the snails in a pit?”
”What,” said Twilight flatly.
”I meant do you keep them hanging in chains and slowly dip them down among the snails so they will be slowly eaten while they scream for their mommies – aagh – eeep- boohoo?” said Saga as she demonstrated the flailing of a theoretical victim.
”No. No I don't,” said Twilight.
”Then do you keep the snails in a pit and the victims chained to a wall so the snails crawl towards them?” Saga tried to imitate a giant venomous carnivorous demon-snail slowly creeping towards a victim. ”Splortch... splortch...”
”How old are you, miss Saga?” said Twilight. And are you on some medication I should know about? Oh what the hay, she isn't worse than most of my neighbors..
”Seventeen!” said Saga happily. ”But how do you do it?”
”I don't," said Twilight. "Do it at all, I mean. Especially since that last thing with the giant venomous carnivorous demon-snails wasn't even one of your stupid rumors, it was something I made up on the spot right now!”
”...oh” said Saga sadly. ”Sorry, I didn't mean to...”
”It's okey," said Twilight. "It wasn't you who made up the rumors. I am just curious why you find things awesome that others find awful. I mean, you are obviously not mean or bad in any way...”
Saga looked thoroughly disappointed.
”...but your appearance, your tastes, your calling in life, it is all like what many ponies – deer, I mean – would avoid. I am just trying to figure you out,” said Twilight Sparkle, then added: ”I'm not very good at figuring anyone out. I have a hard time understanding my friends...”
Very carefully, Saga leaned against her and nudged a hoof.
”Well, so do I. Not that I have that many...” said the little doe, then she sat straight up.
”My appearance, what do you think? How do I look?” she said a little expectantly.
Don't tell her what you think, don't tell her that... ”You remind me of a buffalo on the warpath” said Twilight bluntly. ”I m-mean, with the face paint, and the jewelry...”
”Wow! That's actually awesome!” said Saga.
”It is? I mean, I don't think that was what you were aiming for...” said Twilight and looked down.
”No, but I like buffalo. Real buffalo, I mean, not the ones in stupid movies...” Saga mused. ”I mean, I read about them instead...”
”You like to read?” Twilight perked up.
Saga shrugged. ”Not in school, they only want you to read stupid things you never need... I read all the stories about Hrimfaxi and Skinfaxi here in the temple instead... I sort of dropped out of school...”
Twilight shuddered.
”I could never imagined not having gone to school... school was the only fun I ever had as a kid...” she mumbled.
Saga looked at her.
”Can I ask you something?” she said.
Twilight nodded.
”Is it true that you were Skinfaxi's own student?” Twilight nodded.
”That's true," she said. "I still am. My specialty is the magic of friendship.”
”Then why are you the servant of Hrimfaxi as well?” Saga asked.
”Well, first the Princesses are sisters and friends, so... serving both is no problem. Second... I am not just the servant of Princess Luna,” Twilight said with pride.
”How do you mean?” Saga said.
”Well, we're close... because of things that happened... I mean we share a bedroom now and things like that...” Twilight began, wondering how to explain her personal experiences of the Nightmare Moon affair to someone who considered Princess Luna literally divine...
A Twilight Sparkle wearing considerable more eyeshadow than usual was standing at the top of a windswept tower, looking out over a dramatic landscape as a thunderstorm raged at the same time as the ground was covered in deep mists.
Around her was a huge magic circle drawn with fluorescent red and blue fluids, and at its cardinal corners stood horse skulls bearing fat, drippy black candles. In front of her was a huge flaming brazier into which she kept throwing strange dust as she chanted a dirge that was strangely enough accompanied by wailing electric guitars.
As her chant ended blue lightning struck the ground in front of her and Luna, also wearing considerable more eyeshadow than usual, materialized. Twilight prostrated herself on the ground and shouted:
”My Mistress of the Dark! You have come to me!”
Luna shot her a smoldering gaze and dragged her right front hoof down Twilight's back.
”Rise, my little apprentice! Rise, and bear sacrifice to the Goddess of Passion!”
Twilight rose, shot a smoldering gaze back, and embraced Luna as she shouted:
”OH MY MISTRESS OF NIGHT, DRAG ME INTO THE SEPULCHRE OF LOVE!”
Luna covered her with her wings, and...
”...and then it turned out that when we used the Magic of Friendship, we didn't send Nightmare Moon back to the moon, but we exorcised her from Luna, and... are you listening?” Twilight frowned at the young reindeer who, while staring at Twilight, seemed rather vacant.
”Oh, sure! Listening! Definitely!” Saga said, blushing deeply.
”You must understand, Eira,” said Luna who had by then actually learned the name of her chief and only priestess, ”that while I have the resources to simply send a huge load of gold here to just renovate the temple, it wouldn't be a good idea. It wouldn't solve the fundamental problems you are facing.”
Eira nodded and sipped some more liqueur from the cracked coffee cup she was using, Luna having gained the uncracked one.
”It would be a false thing," she said. "The temple isn't abandoned because it is dilapidated, it is dilapidated because it is abandoned. The temple of Skinfaxi – even they have been abandoned, and it has been even worse the last few years. It is just that pretty because a few wealthy worshipers, like Princess Ljufa, keeps plying them with silver.”
”Why have reindeer abandoned my sister?” said Luna. ”I can actually understand me, seeing how I hardly been active, but...”
Eira chuckled.
”About as active as the creator of reindeer, which I am sure you know!” joked the priestess.
Luna frowned but nodded.
”Well, yes. I count her as an aunt, if it helps... But why my sister?” Luna said
”The ways of the Sun are literally not mine,” said Eira, ”but there is something with the last years bad winters that have made deer less fond of the sun. You'll have to ask another deer.”
She looked at what was literally her deity, so small but so amiable in the flesh and pondered.
”Maybe, if you appeared as you do to me, to a public ritual, next time one is due, so that reindeer could see you. See you smile,” she said and smiled herself.
Luna looked down her cup, then looked up, and smiling.
”I know a better way, and quicker," she said. "I know just the way, and we might as well do it when I am in Tarandroland and have literally nothing else useful to do right now. I must just speak to my sister.”
”Twilight?” said Saga as they sat on the roof of the temple, Twilight having made a demonstration of her telekinesis.
”Yes?” said Twilight who was starting to feel cold.
”I still think you are awesome even if you are a good sorceress!” said the reindeer and leaned against Twilight.
”Oh. Thanks,” said Twilight.
The reindeer hesitated a while, then spoke up again. ”Do you think you could teach me some things? I mean, like magic?”
Twilight paused and tried to conceal her mirth.
”Sure – though I don't know enough about reindeer magic, I don't know if I could...” she said, testing the waters.
”Oh, I can totally show you all Gramma showed me. Which, erh, isn't much,” Saga pouted.
”I am sure we can arrange something then,” said Twilight, ”for what little time I am here.”
”Oh that's so great! I mean, I'll totally be your apprentice. I'll do anything!” Saga gushed.
Twilight turned to her. An idea – rather selfish, but tempting – had struck her.
”Anything?” she said.
”Anything!” said Saga, with determination.
”Even if it is difficult and troublesome?” said Twilight.
”It doesn't matter!” said Saga, and pounded her hoof for emphasis, causing Saturn in bone to fall from the roof inside.
”Even if it is against... your personal moral... code?” asked Twilight.
”I said anything and I mean anything! I swear by my antlers!” Saga said haughtily.
Twilight smiled a nasty little smile. ”Then we have a deal. See, there is this task that has been bothering me, and with today's excitement I have forgotten it, and I really need someone to do it for me...”
An alicorn can connect with the Wheels that turn the heavens anywhere. (Well, almost anywhere. Not beyond the stars, or in the Underworld, or in a certain strange hamlet outside Hoofington, but almost.) Luna had no problems once she had made a hurried telepathic call to her sister to stop the raising of the moon and night from Canterlot.
She danced her primordial dance of the heavens from the cracked and leaking roof of her temple, and those of her pages and maids not asleep – which in the city included hordes of rats – attended from the grounds around the temple. While the moon of course didn't literally rise from the slums of Sarvvik, everyone in it could see Our Lady of the Moon raising it.
Indeed, all over the city reindeer saw Luna and awed, or wondered, or poured out their vodka and swore off it forever, but it was in the old quarters of industry and low-quality housing and crime and squalor of the kind ponies are most unused to, that it had the greatest effect. All over that part of the city, the oldest part of the city, reindeer prostrated themselves towards Luna, the factory workers and their forebucks, the thieves and their fences, the whores and their pimps, the beggars and the drunks and the telemarketers. And Luna smiled towards them and did her dance.
When they were to return to the palace, they found to their dismay that the horrible statue was unstolen. Eira claimed it was out of reverence for their Goddess; Saga instead claimed that the thieves of Sarvvik had taste.
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Another chapter, sweet!
1. You use ellipses, I love it. I use them in my writing as well but generally it seems others use them quite little.
2. I wonder what personally loathsome task Twilight has for Saga, I can't remember anything in particular she was dreading earlier.
3. Saga's daydream was utterly hilarious.
4. Out of curiosity where are you from? Judging from your last comment I'm assuming your from one of Nordic countries.
25059
I thought the word was a geometric shape...
1. I had to look the word up.
2. It hasn't been foreshadowed enough. I thought of that when I wrote this chapter. My scheme for what is going to happen when is very sketchy, unfortunately.
3. Thanks.
4. I'm from Sweden, half Finnish, lives smack in the middle of actual Lappland. The heraldic symbol of my hometown is a reindeer. Yeah.
I agree the daydream was alot of fun, but what I'm really loving about this story is the worldbuilding. Everything from the King's rant about how much Sway Equestria has via Media and the like to the characters you've populated the world with.
25471
It is good to see I have learnt something.
Thanks for your kind words. Worldbuilding - though not neccessarily good such - is the thing I have written about most while someone actually smacking my head when I do wrong.
Love this addition . . . Oh Saga, your friends are going to be so, SO jelly!
33530
Thanks for your words of praise!
SPOILER ALERT!!!
”this is were I bought my hat,
-should be "where"
”my daughter was conceived in this dancing hall, back when it wasn't a hairdresser's”
-Sounds like an interesting story...
”You save your cast-off antlers?”
-It was approximately here that I remembered being in a nature park listening to one of the staff talk about some sort of horn-shedding hoofed beast(been a while, so I can't remember the species, but almost certainly NOT reindeer, probably was elk). Point being, he made a point about "don't make off with any shed antlers you find, because they are a major source of calcium in the ecosystem" and how even the same species that shed them would gnaw the shed ones from last year to get the calcium to grow that year's antlers. So, in this case I wonder if they are doing bad things to the ecosystem by having locked up that much calcium (pile reaching to the ceiling). Could explain the weakness of the warriors(if that wasn't just grousing), and perhaps even food shortages. Then again, they eat stuff that grows on rocks, so they probably aren't hurting for minerals (although their teeth might be worn down like that of people who eat stone-ground corn all their lives, since a bit of grit gets into the corn and abrades the teeth). Also, I will just mention that in my maybe-fanon ponies are pragmatic enough about their mortal remains that "Krastos the Gluemaker" is a perfectly ordinary undertaker (although it isn't generally economical to make glue that way any more).
There was a dangerous tone to her voice which made Twilight drop the mobile.
-Sacrifice place for sentients(or maybe even non-sentients)? Or is it some sort of powerful magic device that shouldn't be entrusted to such weak (in ability to defend it AND/OR moral compass to use it for Good, rather than Evil) guardians?
sacrificed reindeer to the moon in it.”
-Ah, first guess was right.
old old bones, <SNIP> slingshotted the whole mass into the sea.
-Not going to give the bones a decent burial? Then again, perhaps she is just pragmatic about mortal remains.
As I once said, there is a reason my sister warped our battle into a fairy tale. So that no one would take it seriously and do horrible things like this.”
-Ah... I see...
And are you on some medication I should know about? Oh what the hay, she isn't worse than most of my neighbors.
-Actually, I would say that she is the picture of functionality compared to many of her friends... her oddities don't have anything to do with her day-to-day life.
”Oh, sure! Listening! Definitely!” Saga said, blushing deeply.
-Good grief... girl may very possibly need an arranged marriage (I wouldn't trust her libedo not to screw her up if she was allowed to court for herself), to an energetic and creative (or at least receptive to creative idea) male ASAP. He would also need to have the common sense to avoid anything that could possibly result in permanent damage to either of them, no matter how nicely she asks.
”About as active as the creator of reindeer, which I am sure you know!” joked the priestess.
-One wonders what the status of said Aunt is that she is that inactive...
”I still think you are awesome even if you are a good sorceress!”
-Well, that is progress...
Twilight smiled a nasty little smile. ”Then we have a deal. See, there is this task that has been bothering me, and with today's excitement I have forgotten it, and I really need someone to do it for me...”
-Will be interesting to see what this would be and how it will violate her "personal moral code".
or in a certain strange hamlet outside Hoofington,
-Is this a reference to one of the Cthulthu Mythos imports?
While the moon of course didn't literally rose from the slums of Sarvvik,
-"rise"
everyone in it could see Our Lady of the Moon raising it.
-Assuming they are awake and out of doors... same old problem...
”Oh my... ” said Twilight. ”At Nightmare Night, when you sacrifice your candy to Nightmare Moon...”
Oh my! Such wonderful world-building!
ok, this is "I'll-read-to-the-end-of-this-chapter-and-then-go-to-bed-still-reading-5-chapters-later-with-dawn-looming-in-the-near-future" kind of awesome I wish I could double favor this in hail to my rain dears ancestors. have some mustache
PS. one of the best world building stories I've ever read here on fimfiction
Saga is hilarious, especially her daydream.
The worship of Nightmare Moon and the reasons behind Nightmare Night are... less hilarious. Oooer.
Good lord, where in the world did you find all the materials you need for all this world building?
And the characters! I'd definitely love to meet Saga. She's weird enough that I'd probably get a kick out of picking her brain about her interests and things like that.
How do you keep us enthralled so deeply with your story?
Are...are you a wizard who bathes in the blood of virgins, partakes in wicked orgies and laughs while feeding screaming victims to flesh eating snails?
I saw this story some time ago on EQD, but passed it by, but with half a mind, as it was, at least, not dark or grimdark tagged; mainly, I fear, because I like a larger ensemble cast.
Today, however, as I skimmed deeper through fim Fimfic archives, i came across it again, and gave it another look. And I don't know if the summary is different here to that on EQD, but it suggested a rather more-lighthearted story than I first thought. (And Spike is more promiantly featured too, which I like!)
I have not been disappointed. Indeed, as I found myself laughing out loud at points, I rather regretted passing it by before. Still, it has meant I have got a good lot to tackle all at once! I even feel some regret, as I sit reading the night before I depart for a holiday, that I will have to wait over a week before I continue.
You have struck an excellent tone, balancing the world-building, the humour and the seriousness extremely well.
Superlative work, and I will eagerly be awaiting my opportunity to continue further.
983749
Thanks your kind words! However, I have never sent my story to Equestria Daily. I checked recently and it hasn't been sent there by someone else either (if that is even possible!)
If you mean fanfiction.net, where I started to publish it, they have a much shorter limit on words in the description, so they are a bit different.
You haven't? Huh. I might have seen something with a similar premise or something, then... I could have sworn I saw something like it on EQD, complete with a picture of Twi and Luna (but not the same one as here). But I might have seen it on fanfic in the past, then (haven't used that much for pony fanfic laterly, since here and EQD are better generally), and might be misremembering. (Damned if I can find what I thought I saw on EQD...) It was, by the time I got to reading, quite late at night! Perhaps I'm going slightly mad...! (I *do* rather read a lot of pony fanfic when all's said and done...!)
Eh. Well, I'd say you might consider submitting it to EQD if you haven't, then; I would have personally thought it would easily make site's standards!
More fortitous for me to have come across it, I shall look foward to getting back into it again!
I would read the shit out of this fic if someone wrote it.
Saga's imagination... fuckin PRICELESS!!!
SAGA IS BEST REINDEER!!!!!!
Only now finished ch. 8 and I have decided this tale has earned
, and I shall be following the author now 
" . . . a certain strange hamlet outside Hoofington . . . "
Would that be the village of Arkham, home of Muskatonic U.?
1537021
Hamlets tend to have fewer universities, but I did intend something Lovecraftian, yes. The generation of the Sisters' grandparents are (relatively nice) Eldritch Abominations, after all.
I'm suspecting that it's either ignorance or drugs that makes Saga act like that. Not complaining though, that makes her very funny!
Truly, telemarketers fall within the 'scum of the earth' category!
Wow..... I'll like to see what else is in Sagas' mind
2384760 There is worse than telemarketers. Automated telemarketers!
I keep getting their stupid calls all the time in the middle of reading MLP fanfiction! 
25080 You're actually from Sweden and Lappland. That explains a lot.
I'm really liking Saga! Goth-types intrigue me. In the beginning, she kind of reminded me of Gaz from Invader Zim. And her like Gothic-inspired TwiLuna fantasy was delightfully insane!
Where do you come up with this stuff.
"We could make libations."
I hate when fanfics about ponies makes me have to look up completely legitimate words. oh well, the more you know I guess.
Project Horizons?
4967306
Nope, I had no idea what that was when I wrote this. In fact, I think it didn't even exist yet. I just made that up on the spot.
So... Is Luna supposed to be building a boat out of all those antlers?
7322000
Possibly!
7322000 Personally, I find Luna much more personable than Hel.