• Published 28th Mar 2013
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The Rise and Fall of the Dark Lord Sassaflash - Dromicosuchus

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Chapter 22

The Sun rose.

As the first rays of dawn filtered across Equestria, probing into the dying night, they cast long, weird shadows that flickered and leapt in uncouth ways. Who should fear this, though? Every morning as the Sun rose higher in the sky, asserting its dominance, the spindly shadows always shortened, assuming their proper, everyday proportions and shedding the eerie mantle they had worn in the morning twilight. They never lingered, always fading harmlessly away before they could become aware of themselves and their power. That was the way of things. It had always been the way of things.

No longer.

Gangling things that had once been rabbits tottered up on stilt-like legs, their tiny bodies swaying two yards above the ground. The long, clawing shadows of trees detached themselves at the roots and went swimming away across the fields like two-dimensional hydra, snatching with their tentacle-branches at the smaller, darting shadows of shrubs flowing through the grass in huddled little shoals. One or two bushes had uprooted themselves and were crawling and flopping across the ground after their errant shadows, pulling themselves along with their branches, but most seemed limited to flailing ineffectually whenever one of the escaped shades happened to glide within reach.

In her stone-walled dungeon of a laboratory, the Dark Lord Sassaflash shooed a scuttling alembic away from the spidery sigils she was chalking on the floor, sending it scurrying off into the shadows under the great brass-bellied cauldron in the corner. After scratching a few more runes on the worn stones, she spat the piece of chalk out and, raising her head, called, “Mr. Mule? Were you able to locate the raskovnik?”

“Yep,” came the hollow, muffled answer from somewhere overhead. There was a sound of rattling wheels on the winding stone spiral stairs that led down into the laboratory, and not long afterward the Mule appeared, sliding his wheelcart carefully down and trying not to wince as the wheels bumped from one step to the next. “She—I mean, you—ain’t woke up yet?”

Sassaflash glanced to one side, where a blonde pegasus lay unconscious on the hard stone cobbles of the dungeon, her turquoise coat a dirty green in the flickering torchlight of the wall sconces. She shook her head. “No, I am still sedated. The ether may, perhaps, be wearing off at this point, but even if so the spell I cast should keep me under.” With a frown, she added, “Really, breaking in and drugging me was far too easy. I need to reevaluate my home security spells; even granting that I had prior knowledge of what they all were, it should not have been that easy to subvert them. Did you happen to look out the window while you were upstairs? How are things developing?”

With a shake of his head, the Mule responded, “It don’t look good. The sky’s gone all green and the clouds is pink—and they’s things blowing up, somewhere off Sweet Apple Acres way. I heared ‘em.”

“Hm. Discord’s testing its strength, then.” She bit her lip. “Fhtagn! I’ve underestimated it, I just know it. I should never have gambled on its hubris; I had no right to be so confident in that.” Turning back to the concentric rings and angled symbols scrawled out on the floor, she sighed and continued, “Nothing to be done about it now, though; all the pieces are in place, and the game must be played, to whatever end.”

“You done your best.”

“Hah! Yes, my best—and my worst. We shall see which is stronger in the end. Did you bring the balloons? Yes? Excellent. Kindly tie one off for me and pass it over. No, don’t inflate it, just tie it. I am reasonably sure this should work, but it would do well to test it, nonetheless. Best get out the raskovnik, as well.”

Taking the proffered balloon, Sassaflash laid it in the very center of the chalked diagrams and sigils upon the floor. After peering at it with bleary, sleep-deprived eyes for a moment, she took the chalk in her mouth again and made a few modifications to the surrounding sigils. “I wish I had gotten a chance to get some rest; I can’t think straight. It’s just as well we’re testing this on the balloon first...the raskovnik, if you please.”

“Already?” The old creature held out a clover-like sprig. “What about all them chants and dancing you did when we was coming back from Hippoborea?”

Sassaflash shook her head. “Not necessary. I was forced to construct and maintain everything myself, there, but here I have the resources to conduct matters in a more efficient manner. The ‘chants and dancing,’ as you put it, are encoded in these drawings. What matters is that the Aklo is understood and held in its entirety within a mind, not that it take this particular form or that. Indeed, it’s perfectly possible to cast simple spells without saying a single word; if I recall correctly, you’ve seen me do it before, when Starshade attempted to bind me back in the Hollow Shades.”

She lapsed into silence, her face clouded. The Mule shifted in his wheelcart’s harness. “You ain’t heard nothing anent what happened to your sister after you done gave her worrywort?”

A short shake of the head. “No. But it may be that no news is good news. Not that my family has ever been particularly communicative with me. Or I with them.” The pegasus frowned. “I don’t think that rift can ever be healed. Even were it not for our history, we’re too different now. I’ve seen and done too much to return to their frightened little world. I would be just another monster to them; a horror from the outer dark.” Whisking around, she returned her attention to the limp red balloon lying within the mesh of diagrams and sigils. “But none of that matters now. To the matter at hoof.” Reaching out, she let a single leaflet of raskovnik flutter down out of the air to touch the balloon. For a moment it seemed to freeze in place, as though it had suddenly fallen against a drop of sticky sap, and then with an abrupt snap both leaf and balloon disappeared. The Dark Lord continued to stare at the spot where they had rested with narrowed eyes, and a moment later there was another mane-ruffling burst of displaced air as the balloon reappeared, apparently none the worse for wear. Sassaflash permitted herself a quick, fierce little smile, and turned to the Mule.

“I owe you an apology, Mr. Mule—yes! An apology for my own stupidity. I could have spared you your broken bones, if I had only had the wit to see it at the time. When we teleported back to Ponyville, I gambled that the distance would be great enough to avoid any harsh discontinuities in space, and you paid the price—but I need never have made that wager in the first place.” She raised a hoof, gesturing towards something far beyond the grimy, soot-dusted stone ceiling of her laboratory. “As though vast distances are a rare thing in this cosmos! Idiot. I should have seen it.”

The Mule shrugged. “If’n you say so.”

Sassaflash made a small, half-formed noise, and then blinked once or twice, unsure how to respond. After a moment the Mule took pity on her, and with a smile said, “Beg pardon, Miss Sassaflash. I was supposed to say ‘Seen what,’ weren’t I?”

“...Humor me my exposition, please, Mr. Mule.”

“I does, Miss Sassaflash, I does. Just so long as you knows you’s doing it. ‘Seen what?’”

She hesitated, but after a smile and an encouraging nod, she continued, “Well, as I said, vast distances are hardly rare. Rather than teleporting directly from one part of the world to another and hoping that it was far enough, all we really needed to do was jaunt far out into deep space, and then teleport back to our destination. There is, as the name would suggest, plenty of space in space. Exposure to hard vacuum is not, of course, particularly healthy, but if it’s brief enough—and the fact that this balloon has returned unpopped from just such a voyage strongly suggests that it will be—we should be perfectly safe.” Taking care not to scuff the inscriptions on the floor, she lifted the little balloon from its resting place and tossed it into a shadowed corner of the room, beyond the reach of the flickering torchlight. Looking up, her pale mane shining in the warm glow, she said, “I suppose there’s no way I can talk you out of coming.”

The Mule shook his old head. “I’m a-going to see this through to the end, Miss Sassaflash. I’m coming alongside.”

“Very well.” After making a few more modifications to the chalk lines arcing across the stone flags, Sassaflash slung a saddlebag on to her back and trotted over to the corner where her double—herself, one day younger—lay drugged and unconscious on the floor. With some effort, she hoisted her own limp body up on to her shoulders, and trudged over to the center of the spell circle. At the Dark Lord’s gesture the Mule wheeled his way over to her side.

Their eyes met. Sassaflash raised a questioning eyebrow, and when the Mule nodded she gave a grim smile. “Very well, then.” Clearing her throat, she barked a short, guttural command, and around them the world dissolved.

-----

Far to the north, a dry wind whistled through the bleak Hippoborean sky, carrying clouds of powder-dry ice dust over the rocky expanse of the glacial outwash plain far below. Here and there among the rounded pebbles of the sandur small blue-white pockets of snow had accumulated, protected from the low summer Sun, but for the most part the immense sandur was bare and gray, a waste of dust and emptiness bounded by the horizon and the distant, gleaming line of the northern glaciers. Only one feature interrupted the flat sweep of the wash: a heavy black door in its very center, framed by glittering, sharp-edged crystals.

Space stretched, ruptured, and was whole again, and with a rush of air and a crack like a tiny thunderbolt two tiny figures stumbled into existence not far from the brutish door, one bearing upon her back the limp body of her exact doppelgänger. The Mule, propped up by his wheelcart, managed to stay upright, but Sassaflash almost dropped her burden as she slumped forward, choking in shock. Lifting a hoof to his throat, the Mule wheezed, “Feels—feels like somepony done bucked me in the lungs. You alright, Miss Sassaflash?”

At first Sassaflash made no answer, but after a few strangled gasps she managed, “I am adequate, thank you, Mr. Mule. Yourself?”

“I reckon. That sure is one way to wake a body up. But what was that?”

“That, apparently,” she responded, “is what it feels like to have the air drained from one’s lungs and then have it all slam back in again at about a hundred yards per second. Unpleasant.” She drew a ragged breath. “But we seem to be unharmed, which is all that matters.” Turning, she looked at the jagged gate nearby, dusky and sinister amid the desolation. “Our task awaits.”

The Mule followed her gaze. “You said this here Solemn Gate—”

“Somber Gate.”

“Right, that. You said it was cursed. What kind o’ curse, exactly…?”

The pegasus gave a short, humorless laugh. “Where shall I begin? Very little is known about the empire that once dominated these lands, or of the ponies who inhabited it. Even less is known of the cataclysm that sealed their fate. The traditional tale is that a powerful warlock-king took hold of the empire, feeding on the magic of its denizens and enslaving them for his own purposes. He hunted out and devoured magic wherever it could be found. He might have been attempting to turn himself into a God—like the monster Tirek, in classical mythology.” She shook her head. “Of course, he was doomed to fail; hoarding that much magic calls down the wrath of Yog-Sothoth, and buries the presumptive God-to-be under an avalanche of bad luck. What happened, exactly, nopony knows. There are rumors that Celestia and Luna were involved in the disappearance of the warlock-king and his empire, but they’re only rumors.”

The Dark Lord shivered as the wind across the waste picked up, cutting cold against her flanks. Shifting her unconscious self into a more comfortable position on her shoulders, she trudged towards the tall doorway, gesturing for the Mule to follow. The pegasus said nothing more until they were standing in the very shadow of the Somber Gate and she had laid her own past self upon the rocks in front of it. Then, looking up at the mass of crystal and stone looming above them, she said, “But there was one thing that survived the disappearance of this forgotten empire: the Somber Gate. Its original purpose, and why it alone survived, are both mysteries. It was a torture device of some kind, perhaps. There must be more to it than that, but I can’t imagine what.” She propped her past self’s head up on a hefty chunk of rounded granite, and arranged her so that she was facing directly towards the gate. “Stand back, Mr. Mule, and whatever you do, do not look into the doorway when I open it.”

Stone grated against stone as the Mule wheeled back. “But what’s it going to do to her—to you?”

“That,” said Sassaflash, “is what we are about to find out.” Hooking her hoof into the heavy metal band hanging from the front of the door, she gave it a sharp tug and pulled it wide. The Mule raised his forehoof to his face, blocking out his view of the open portal but allowing him to see Sassaflash standing beside it. Likewise averting her eyes, the Dark Lord looked down at her past self, lying unconscious on the ground with her head facing the door, and spoke a single word.

Zhro!

The prone pony’s eyes flickered open, already vacant and filmed with green light, and her face slipped into a strange expression—half pain, half puzzlement. A muscle twitched in her neck, and her ears swiveled back against her head, but other than that, she made no movement. Sassaflash knelt beside her and peered into her eyes, then straightened and edged noiselessly away from her mesmerized self, gesturing for the Mule to follow. When they were perhaps thirty paces away, she whispered, “There. That should be far enough. We should speak softly, though; I do not know how fragile the enchantment is, and it must not be broken.”

The Mule was still looking back at Sassaflash where she lay in front of the gate, staring straight ahead through the empty arch. It was hard to tell at this distance, but occasionally her muscles seemed to spasm under her coat, and he thought he could see something very like agony beginning to creep into her eyes. Turning back to the one-day-older Sassaflash standing before him, he murmured, “I ain’t sure I like this, Miss Sassaflash. What’s it doing to you?”

The Dark Lord raised a hoof to shield the gate from her sight, and looked back at herself. “Torturing me. The stories say that anypony who looks through that gate is forced to face their worst fears, hallucinating a nightmare-scape in which everything that they have ever loved or cherished is torn apart before their eyes. Unless disturbed, they remain ensnared in that state until they die—usually of thirst or exposure, though there are reports of ponies who suffered heart attacks or who simply stopped breathing. I suspect those particular cases were ponies who chose to take their own lives.” The Mule’s eyes widened, and he started to trot over to where the past Sassaflash lay bespelled, but Sassaflash laid a gentle hoof on his shoulder and gave a wan smile. “You can’t save me, Mr. Mule. I have to suffer this. It’s me or the world.”

In front of the gate, the enchanted pegasus drew a long, ragged breath. Her wings were shivering at her sides, and the hairs on her face were wet with tears. The Mule gritted his teeth. “I ain’t a-going to stand by while—”

“Mr. Mule, listen. A day ago, I destroyed Equestria. I saw the shattered ruins of mountains lying dead across a lifeless waste, and walked through a world that had been so twisted and mutilated that space itself had been torn to pieces. Nopony survived. Everypony died. That is what I’m seeing now—what the Somber Gate is forcing me to see. By showing this to my past self, we ensure that it never really happened—that the explanation of my experiences is not an actual apocalypse, but a mere hallucination. It’s a small enough price to pay.” Sassaflash‘s past self gave a piteous whimper, and the Dark Lord gestured towards her. “Listen! Do you want this to have been real?”

The Mule started to protest, but he was interrupted—not by the mare at his side, but by the pony slumped in front of the gate. Throwing her head back, her bewitched eyes frantic with loss, the pegasus screamed, “Mule!” The old creature started back in surprise, while beside him Sassaflash bowed her head. “Parchment! Sweetie Belle! Angel!

“You see?” said Sassaflash.

The Mule said nothing.

-----

The low autumn Sun had slid further along the horizon, dipping slowly towards night, and the shadows across the rocky sandur were long and cold. The Mule sat alone on a small rise, far enough away from the Somber Gate that he could no longer hear Sassaflash‘s occasional broken outbursts, but near enough that he could just make out her present and past selves, one lying in front of the portal and the other sitting a bit off to the side, watching herself as she wandered through nightmares of death and destruction. In the end, seeing her suffering had been too much for him, and he had excused himself to this distant perch while the Dark Lord remained by her own side—to satisfy herself, she had said, that the hallucination was covering the same ground as her memories.

Despite his best efforts to stay awake, he was just beginning to drowse when he heard the sound of hooves scraping on the pebbles nearby, and scrambling upright saw the Dark Lord Sassaflash approaching, her wings clutched tightly to her flanks against the cold and her ears drooping wearily. Stepping forward, the Mule asked, “It ain’t over, is it?

“No,” Sassaflash shook her head, “It isn’t. But I wanted to check on you. Your injuries, the cold…” She gestured vaguely with an outstretched wing.

“I’m fine.”

“Good.” The pegasus nodded. “Good.” She lowered herself on to the ground, and looked back over her shoulder at the distant spot of turquoise blue-green that was her past self. “I was concerned that it would fail, but fortunately my worries appear to have been groundless. It would seem the reports of the Somber Gate’s effects were not entirely accurate.”

“Sure looked like you was having a nightmare to me,” observed the Mule. The Dark Lord nodded.

“Indeed. The confusion in the tales is very understandable. From what I had heard, though, I hoped that its effects would be more subtle, and now I am quite certain that they are. The Somber Gate does not force a pony to face their worst nightmares; rather, I think, it does something even worse. It unmakes them. It takes everything that they value about themselves, every element from which they have constructed their identity, and razes it to the ground. The young mare in love is told that her love is a sham, the earnest student is told that her beloved mentor despises her...”

“And a pony who reckons she’s got what it takes to be boss o’ the world gets told that that just ain’t so.”

Rem acu tetigisti.” Sassaflash gave a grim chuckle. “Do you know, Mr. Mule, I think the evil warlock-king of ancient Hippoborea may have been, in his heart of hearts, something of an idealist? It seems not to have occurred to him that for some ponies, the extermination of their ego might actually be a good thing.”

The Mule considered this for some moments. Then, nodding his head in the direction of the Gate, he asked, “Where is you at now?”

“In my hallucination? My despair is past; when I left to check on you, I was just preparing to summon Starswirl the Bearded. If all goes well, with his help I will be traveling back in time soon, and the loop will be closed.” Lifting herself to her hooves, she continued, “In fact, I had better be returning. Even at this late stage, it is possible that some divergence might creep in, and I need to know if one does.”

“Hold up,” said the Mule. “I’m coming.”

They trotted along in silence for some moments, shivering in the twilit chill and wading through shadows. At length the Mule asked, “Miss Sassaflash? You said your other self was fixing to summon up Starswirl to send you back in time, right?”

“That had not been my original purpose in reviving him, but that was the end result, yes.”

The Mule’s long ears twitched back in puzzlement. “That don’t make no sense, though. If you was—is—dreaming, and he was just a dream, he couldn’t’a sent you back in time.”

Sassaflash gave him a sharp look. “No? Just because he existed only within my mind? I summoned him with Aklo, Mr. Mule, and Aklo works regardless of whether it is scribed into glyphs and symbols upon a stone floor, or merely held within the mind. I performed the rituals needed to drag Starswirl back from beyond the grave, and I performed them correctly. Little details like which reality, precisely, I performed those rituals within are utterly inconsequential. The Starswirl that I revived was truly Starswirl, with all his own faculties intact; his existence just happened to be hosted in the neurons within my skull, rather than in the arrangement of atoms in the cosmos without.” Drawing to a halt, she raised a warning hoof. “But hush. We are drawing within earshot. We cannot allow ourselves to stumble now, so close to success.”

Not far away, her past self still lay prone in front of the Somber Gate, staring with empty eyes into the gaping arch before her. Sassaflash and the Mule positioned themselves off to one side, sitting so that the open door blocked their view of the gateway itself. At odd intervals the mesmerized pony would mutter a disjointed response to some unspoken question or statement, carrying on a dream conversation that existed only within her own head:

“Can’t you do something? Can’t you save them from me?”

“Then I’m on my own.”

“What do I—are you offering to help me? Half a minute ago you had me pinned to a wall!”

And, at last, “Take me back in time.”

Sassaflash leaned forward, her wings tense, and a shiver ran up the Mule’s spine. This was it; the last great magic. Space and time, undone and defied by Sassaflash‘s will and Starswirl’s lore. He wondered what it would look like; a shattering of space, like what he had seen when the Hounds of Tindalos had forced their way into the universe? An echoing eddy of moments, with Sassaflash‘s past self flickering back and forth through time before vanishing from the present? Something else entirely, unimaginable and strange? A minute passed...two minutes...five minutes…

Beside the Mule, Sassaflash gave a small start of surprise. Rising to her hooves and motioning for him to stay where he was, she stepped closer to her hypnotized doppelgänger. For some moments she stood there, staring down at herself. At last she raised her head and looked back at her friend, her face a strange blank.

“It’s over.”

The Mule blinked. “What?”

Raising a hoof, the necromancer pushed against the Somber Gate’s heavy door, swinging it gratingly across the pebbles of the wash back into its frame with a solid, final thunk. Her past self made no motion, continuing to stare ahead with empty eyes. “What I said. It’s over. Starswirl has sent me back to one day ago, and the course of time is inevitable again. No more choices.”

“But you ain’t gone nowheres. You’s still a-sitting there just like—”

A rough push from Sassaflash‘s hoof, and her past self slumped to one side, her head lolling against the cold stones and amber eyes still staring lifelessly ahead. The Mule started back with a gasp, and the necromancer nodded.

“Yes, I’m dead. My body, at least. Did I not tell you that when I traveled back in time I had to construct a new body? Only my mind was sent back—and this is what happened to what was left behind. It’s just an empty shell now, and the apocalypse I witnessed is nothing more than a dream.” She gave a sad little chuckle. “Funny, I thought I would feel a greater sense of accomplishment. Some...some sense of having made things better. Then again, Discord is still loose, and we have no way of knowing how successful the Princesses will be in bringing it to heel. They may fail. Really, all I have definitely succeeded in doing is destroying the world slightly less than was originally the case.”

“Don’t you talk like that.” The Mule stepped forward and laid a hoof on Sassaflash‘s shoulder. “Don’t you say that. They’ll beat it, you’ll see.”

“Will they?” asked Sassaflash, raising an eyebrow. “Shall we return to Ponyville, then, and find out what exactly I have wrought? There’s nothing to keep us here, and I am exhausted—and I have no doubt you are equally fatigued.”

The Mule shivered, and looked to the west, where the sinking Sun still glowered on the horizon, painting the craggy landscape by turns with splashes of fire and deep, blue-black shadows. “Alright. But I reckon they’s still one thing left to do afore we go.”

-----

A pillar of fire rose above the rocky sandur, trailing high up into the night sky. Sparks drifted against the stars, blown here and there by the wild wind of the wastes, and tiny crystals of ice hissed and popped among the heaped stones surrounding the flames, steaming away into vapor. A dark figure lay curled within the blaze, its limbs folded tightly and its head tucked against its side like a resting bird.

Not far from the pyre, the Mule and Sassaflash sat in silence, watching as the Dark Lord’s body burned. At length the Mule, turning to his companion, said, “Y’know, when I said we shouldn’t ought to leave you a-lying out here like this, I figured we could just get some rock stones and pile ‘em over top of you, that’s all. I didn’t think—”

“I happen to like fire,” responded Sassaflash, “and it is my funeral. In any case, it’s much easier this way.”

The Mule nodded. “Fair enough.”

For some minutes the two sat in silence, watching the past slowly burn and crumble into ash. At length the Mule, who had been staring into the flames with a puzzled expression on his long face, spoke up again. “Miss Sassaflash?”

“Yes?”

“They’s one thing I can’t quite square. Everything you seen—everypony dying, Equestria getting blowed up to smithereens, the Princesses getting wore out and losing their magic—that was all just a dream, right?”

“Yes,” said Sassaflash, her voice harsh, “and we worked very hard to make sure of that.”

The Mule’s look of puzzlement deepened. “That don’t make no sense, though. I mean, we brung you here to make you dream that the world had ended, but we wouldn’t’a done that if’n you hadn’t had the dream in the first place, and you wouldn’t’a dreamed it if’n we hadn’t brung you here, and—” He stopped at the touch of Sassaflash‘s hoof on his shoulder. She shook her head.

“Don’t try to make sense of it, Mr. Mule. It is easily enough explained—causality is only ever approximately true, free will is an outright lie, and we are all puppets of chance—but to actually accept that explanation is not really possible. Not for a sane pony, at any rate. Be still, and be grateful that, just this once, the world was not as cold and cruel as it could have been.”

The Mule cast a glance up at the glittering stars overhead, and murmured, “It’s still awful cold sometimes, though, Miss Sassaflash.”

She nodded. “That it is, Mr. Mule, that it is.”

“Seems to me, though,” said the old creature, “that when it’s cold, the thing to do is find someplace warm or start a fire. Do something about it.”

“Do you think so? Hah!” Gesturing towards the pyre on which her body was burning, Sassaflash said, “I think I’ve set enough fires in my life now, don’t you? The last really large one I kindled nearly consumed all of Equestria. No, I believe I will stay out in the cold from now on, and leave tending the hearth to those with humbler ambitions than my own. It’s safest that way.”

The Mule shook his head. “Maybe so—but I don’t reckon you’ll be able to help yourself. You’re a firebug, and that’s the truth. You ain’t a-going to just go back home and sit on your hooves all by your lonesome; you’ll do something.”

With a frown, the necromancer responded, “You think I haven’t learned my lesson, then.”

“I didn’t say that. Might could be, though, that you ain’t clear on what kind o’ lesson you learned.” He turned to look at his companion. “The mistake you made the first time wasn’t wanting to fix things; that’s fine. It was thinking the world was broke, when it was really something inside you that’d gone wrong. You’ve got a lot o’ power, Miss Sassaflash, and you could do a powerful lot o’ good with it—you really could. You just got to make sure that you use it the right way.” He shrugged. “I don’t reckon you’ll make that same mistake twice.”

“Well.” The fire was dying down now, its hungry tongues rising low above the sooty remnants of the Dark Lord’s body and licking against her blackened bones. Flickering firelight danced in Sassaflash‘s eyes as she gazed at the flames, staring into her own empty eye sockets. “Perhaps not.” Rising to her hooves, she trotted over to the smoldering pyre, speaking over her shoulder. “Perhaps I will not be given a chance. Do you think Celestia, when she finds out what I’ve done, will be content to leave me to my own devices? Even if she is inclined to be merciful, once the blame has been pinned on me I will be exposed to other powers, and they will have none of her scruples. I see it coming. Tartarus-wind...titan blur...black wings...Yog-Sothoth save me! The three-lobed burning eye…” She stood there for a long moment, looking down at her remains in silence. A charred feather, blown free from one of her burning wings and wedged into a crevice in the rock nearby, caught her attention, and for a moment she extended her hoof to it, as though to pull it free.

Then another thought seemed to occur to her. Abandoning the feather, she raised a wing to shield herself from the heat, reached out, and knocked her own scorched skull away from the fire, sending it rattling away across the stones. The Mule started. “Miss Sassaflash, what—”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Mule,” she responded, “I have no necromantic purpose in this. It is merely sentiment.” After waiting a few moments to let it cool, she touched her pastern to it once or twice to assure herself that it was safe to touch and then tucked it under her wing and trotted back to her friend’s side.

The Mule gave the skull a dubious glance. “Sentiment, you say.”

Yes, Mr. Mule, sentiment. A memento, if you will. I need to remember this, you know. What I did. What I was.”

He hesitated, then nodded. “That’s fine, I guess. Don’t you forget that that ain’t who you is now, though.”

“I hope not, Mr. Mule. I hope not.”

-----

It took Sassaflash little time to prepare the spell that would take them back to Ponyville—she had, as she told the Mule, had plenty of practice at it lately—and many hundreds of leagues to the south, the silence of the necromancer’s lair was soon broken by a sharp crack as air rushed away to make room for the arrival of the two travelers. After recovering from the shock of teleportation (“Miss Sassaflash, I don’t mean to complain, but ain’t there someplace out in space we could teleport to that has air?” “By all means, Mr. Mule. Which would you prefer? Amalthaea’s carbonic acid atmosphere, perhaps, hot enough to flash-boil you from the inside out? Or perhaps you’d find the bracing chill of Auðumbla’s breezes, blowing off a sea of liquid azote, to be more to your liking? Then of course there are the crushing depths of George, where the pressure is so great that the line between air and metal is blurred, or Sleipnir’s clouds of muriatic acid, or—” “Okay, okay, I get it”) and depositing Sassaflash‘s skull in her cauldron to be boiled clean of residue later on, they made their way up out of the dungeon into the bookish labyrinth of the necromancer’s home. Sassaflash trotted over to the front door, laid her hoof on the latch, and turned to look back at her friend. “I must warn you, Mr. Mule, that I have no idea what we will see once we step outside. Discord was making its presence known even when we departed, and that was many hours ago now. My hope, of course, was that in its hubris it would let its guard down sufficiently to allow the Princesses or the bearers of the Elements of Harmony to overcome it, but...well. We shall see. The continued survival of this house, at least, shows that the ultimate destruction I feared has been averted, so there is some comfort in that. Still, be prepared for anything.” She pressed down on the latch, and swung the door wide.

A placid, starlit Ponyville night greeted them. Snug little cottages slumbered by the cobbled byway, deep in restful shadow, and a little ways down the street a flickering lantern cast its warm glow on moss-rimmed paving stones. A few clouds drifted overhead, their edges silvered by the full moon, and between them the stars shone in still, silent beauty. Everything smelled fresh and clean, like the air after a summer shower.

Sassaflash stumbled down from her stoop to the street, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. Craning her neck back and staring up at the stars, she executed a bewildered little half-turn in the middle of the street, then looked back at the Mule, who was still standing in the doorway and regarding their peaceful surroundings with a mild, approving eye. He nodded. “Looks like it worked.”

“But I don’t—Discord was free; it was beginning to warp the world even when we left. One cannot just sweep a God under the rug like that!” She hesitated, and then hurried off down the alley towards Mane Street, the Mule ambling along behind and trying without much success to stifle his yawns.

Despite the lateness, there were a few ponies still on the streets, and Sassaflash wasted no time in accosting the nearest one. The Mule wasn’t near enough to overhear their conversation, but brief as it was it seemed to satisfy Sassaflash, for after nodding a hurried thanks she darted off down the street towards town hall, gesturing for the Mule to follow. It was not far away, and after ten minutes at a brisk trot the necromancer came to the edge of the hall’s long, spired shadow, her pace slowing as she peered into the gloom at a long, low thing sprawled in front of the building. The Mule drew up alongside her and, following her gaze, murmured, “What is that?”

Sassaflash made no answer. Stepping forward into the building’s moon-cast shadow, she made her way to the prone shape and raised her left hoof into the air, holding it high over her head. There was a brief, brilliant burst of flame, stabbing up from the necromancer’s hoof into the sky, and for a moment the thing in front of her was lit with fiery orange light. Its granite surface gleamed, and the Mule had a glimpse of mismatched wings, sharp claws, a misshapen head that was part pony, part dragon, and part nightmare, and a twisting, sinuous body like a monstrous snake. The light faded. Blinking dazzled eyes in the darkness, the Mule repeated, “What is that?”

Hooves thumped on the trampled sod in front of the hall, and Sassaflash emerged from the shadows, a dazed look on her face. She looked up at her friend. “It’s Discord. Turned to stone. It worked. It really—I can’t believe it worked! They really did it! Hah!”

The Mule smiled. “Didn’t I say so? Princess Celestia ain’t ruled these thousands o’ years just to be beat now.”

“Ah, no.” With an awkward flutter of her wings, Sassaflash said, “It wasn’t Princess Celestia, according to the pony I talked to back on Mane Street. It was, um, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.” She directed a sharp look at her companion. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Nope.”

“I thought you said something.”

“I didn’t.”

“Hm. Yes. Well. Don’t.” The Mule returned her stare with a look of placid innocence, and at length, after a valiant but doomed effort to maintain her stern glare, the necromancer gave in and laughed, “Oh, very well. I was a fool, and I completely underestimated them—fortunately for us all!” Glancing back over her shoulder at the petrified God lying in the dirt, she continued, “I am tempted to take a chisel and sledgehammer to that thing—its continued existence worries me—but others have clearly chosen otherwise, and perhaps they had a reason for that. Perhaps I should acquaint myself with all the facts before acting. There is a first time for everything, is there not, Mr. Mule?”

The old creature smiled. “I reckon so, Miss Sassaflash.” He gave a tremendous yawn, and inquired, “They ain’t nothing more we need to do now, is they? Only I could do with some shut-eye.”

“No,” answered Sassaflash, shaking her head, “Our labors are at an end. The world is saved. Evil has been vanquished, and good has triumphed.” She raised a forehoof, and made a flourishing gesture in the air. “The End!”

“Good,” said the Mule. “I’m tired.”

-----

The following days and weeks passed serenely enough, with the Mule staying at Sassaflash‘s cottage, at her insistence, until his leg healed. In the Dreamlands the Mule told his wife what had happened, and though she grudgingly admitted that she might have misjudged the necromancer, she had no opportunity to say so to the mare herself, for Sassaflash did not venture down the Seven Hundred Steps of Deeper Slumber the first night or any night after that—or if she did, she gave the mules’ cabin a wide berth. There was an undercurrent of uneasy tension to her every action. She seemed at loose ends, and when she wasn’t working on translations of tracts and monographs (which, the Mule learned with some surprise, was her main source of income. Most ponies had little use for forgotten knowledge of the elder world, but there were many scholars and writers from lands beyond Equestria who wished for their works to see a wider audience, and Sassaflash was more than willing to translate them into Equestrian—for a fee, of course) she spent her time flipping listlessly through ancient tomes or fidgeting around with various minor spells and rituals, apparently to no particular purpose. It was as though she were waiting for something to happen.

One evening after dinner when they were both in the kitchen, the Mule washing dishes and the pegasus hunched over in a corner reading a surprisingly modern book entitled Recurrent Mythic Archetypes in Palaeopony Cultures: A Hippological Interpretation of the Elkdown Shards and the Pnakotic Manuscripts, the Mule hazarded that if it was Celestia finding out what had happened that had got her so worried, she should probably just go talk to the Princess herself and get it over with. Sassaflash shrugged off the suggestion with a blank stare and a distracted laugh. “What, and waste perfectly good bits on a train ticket?” the necromancer said. “No, let her come to me, accompanied by her golden guard and radiant with fury and might! The least I can do, after unleashing Discord on the good fools of Ponyville, is give them a spectacle before I go.”

“Supposing she don’t come?” asked the Mule, sliding a dish into the drying rack he had insisted that Sassaflash buy shortly after their return from Hippoborea. “Might could be she don’t know where to start looking. I ain’t said nothing, and I know Miss Sweetie Belle ain’t a-going to, neither.”

One of the necromancer’s ears twitched askance, and she shut the heavy book in front of her with a soft whud. “You think not? I made her face the Hounds of Tindalos and Discord itself, Mr. Mule, and she has not forgiven me for it—and nor should she.”

The Mule shook his head. “No, I mean I talked to her. When I gone to the market yesterday, she was there with her friends, so o’ course I said ‘howdy-do.’ She asked if you was alright, and I said you was, mostly. Then I asked her if’n she’d be coming back, and she said no, never. ‘It’s her fault I met Discord, and her fault he done all them things to my Mom and Dad and Rarity and everypony else. I know she done her best to fix her mistakes,’ she says to me, ‘but she wasn’t supposed to make mistakes in the first place. She was supposed to be better than that. She made me think she was better than that. I know she tried, and I ain’t a-going to tell nopony abouten her, but I ain’t a-going back, neither. I can’t.’”

Sassaflash‘s ears drooped, her head bent as she stared past the book in front of her into some abyss that only she could see. “She trusted me completely, as only a foal can trust, and I betrayed that confidence. Innocence lost...” She sighed. “Miserable fool that I was. I wish she could know how sorry I am.”

“Miss Sassaflash, you—”

“Goodnight, Mr. Mule,’ said the necromancer, rising to her hooves. “I am going to bed.”

-----

Several days later, one of the Mule’s follow-up visits to the hospital yielded the good news that his bones had grown together enough for the usual bone-mending magics to be applied. After an hour spent under the surgeon’s horn, he bade a glad farewell to his wheelcart and cast, and ambled out of the hospital that evening with a light heart. It would be good to be able to do work again; he didn’t like being a burden, and his presence could only have served as a reminder to Sassaflash of her failures. It would do her good to see him well again, to see that wounds could heal. Besides, he suspected that some of Sassaflash’s anxiety was strain from having to share her space. She was not, he reflected, the most social of ponies.

It was dusk when he turned on to Haybale Lane, and the cottages lining the little back street were sunk in deep blue shadow—all but for a splash of vivid gold and white across their very tops, where the low Sun shone in over the rooftops. A little speck of black whirred across the painted sky, bobbing and weaving as it hunted for insects on the wing—a bat, probably, out seeking an early meal. The evening chill bit at the tips of the Mule’s long ears, and with a shiver he hurried up the steps of number 108 and rapped at the door.

After the usual muffled shuffling and the sounds of bolts being shot and locks being unlocked, Sassaflash peered out of the cracked door. Her eyes widened at the sight of the Mule. “Your cast! Your cart! You’re well, then?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” nodded the Mule, with a broad smile. “Them doctor ponies knows what they’s doing.”

“Excellent news!” The necromancer stepped back and gestured with an outspread wing for the Mule to enter, shoving a few small stacks of books out of the way with her hind leg. “Most excellent. I had not anticipated it would be this soon, but all the better. This is a great relief.”

“Yep. I’m a-going to head out and look for work first thing tomorrow; it’s a mite late in the season, but I reckon they’s still some harvesting that needs doing. I’ll be outen your mane soon enough.”

Sassaflash gave him an odd, sidelong look. “Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I will be out of yours.”

“Begging your pardon?” The heatless cathode lamp that normally lit the book-filled room was off, and but for the open door it would have been completely dark. As it was, the shadows draped from the ancient oaken bookshelves and precarious stacks of tomes were too thick for the Mule to make out Sassaflash‘s expression. There had been a strange note to her voice when she had spoken; not unnerving, exactly, but strange. It spoke of hidden things.

“Close the door, if you will, Mr. Mule,” said the Dark Lord, and the Mule heard her trot further back in amongst the stacks. A moment later an electric hum filled the air, and the colorless, bleached light of the cathode lamp flickered to life. “I have a request to make of you, now that you are quite well. It is not critical, but it would make things easier.”

The Mule’s long ears flopped back in puzzlement, and he pulled the door to. “Well, alrighty. Only I ain’t sure I follow. What do you mean, you’ll be getting outen my mane?”

Sassaflash settled herself behind the little desk on which the lamp rested, and for a moment the Mule was reminded of their first meeting, when she had sat just so, with Sweetie Belle at her side and a stern, assured look on her face. She was still stern, but there was clarity and sadness in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. Folding her hooves in front of her, the pegasus said, “It will not have escaped your notice that I have been...uncomfortable these past few weeks. I made horrible mistakes, and other ponies paid a terrible price. That our labors barely averted a worse catastrophe does not excuse me. I can’t bear to just carry on with my life, free of repercussions, as if I’d done nothing at all.”

“Miss Sassaflash, there ain’t no sense in beating yourself up. That ain’t a-going to fix nothing.”

The necromancer nodded. “Indeed not! But while I may not be able to undo my crimes, and while self-flagellation may be pointless, I can at least make some measure of atonement.” Her eyes flashed in the dark. “As you said in Hippoborea, I possess great power—and my skillset is nearly unique. There are things I can do that nopony else, not even the Princesses, could hope to accomplish. I have a singular talent, for example, for deicide.

“For all the wrong I did, there was one deed that I can be proud of. Tsathoggua is dead. It will never erupt from Voormithadreth, wild and ravening with the hunger of a God, to lay waste to the world. But Tsathoggua was not the only Great Old One biding its time until the stars are right. There are others, slumbering in deep and hidden places—and I mean to hunt them down.”

Her tone was even and calm, with none of the bombast or frantic ferocity that used to mark her more megalomaniacal moments, but the grim determination in her voice was, in its way, more unnerving than any wild outburst would have been. Feeling as though his bones had turned to ice, the Mule stammered, “They’ll kill you! Or worse! You barely got out of Voormi’s Address—Voormithadreth—alive, and you was skeert crazy when I found you down there. I had to feed you worrywort just to keep them things that wasn’t shoggoths off’n our tails.”

Sassaflash gave an odd, twisted smile. “And yet we are alive, and Tsathoggua is dead. Do you appreciate the significance of that? Tsathoggua was a God. We should have had no chance; not a small chance, but none at all. If I pit myself against another Great Old One, I will probably die, it is true—but I might not. That ‘might’ is one of the most miraculous, improbable, precious things in the world.” Placing her hooves on the desk, she rose upright, her wings half-open at her back. “It is not a question of what I can do, but what I must do. Do you think all the strength in the world will be able to prevail against, say, the Father of Serpents or the Twin Blasphemies when they rise? I, a mote of dust cloaked in shadows, unknown to both Gods and mortals, may be the only one who can strike them down. I have to try.”

With a dull thump, the Mule sat back on his haunches, his head swimming. “I could stop you. I could tell Princess Celestia what you done.”

“And bring me to the attention of the Outer Gods? You’d only guarantee my destruction. I am certain they are seeking me now; Tsathoggua’s death cannot have failed to draw their notice. But if I blot out their eyes, perhaps they will never find me. Even their emissary might find it difficult to maneuver on this world, without its priest to guide it.” She waited for a response, but as the Mule seemed to be having trouble finding his tongue, at length she continued, “Well. Don’t let it disturb you, Mr. Mule. It need not concern you. I only mention this now because I could not leave while you were still recovering; I had to make sure you were well, and could look after yourself. Now that your injuries have healed, though, I do have a request to make of you. There is a possibility, however slim, that I will be able to return home to Ponyville after this little quest of mine, and in the interim I’ll need somepony to look after my house. Now, of course Angel and Crowded Parchment could manage that, but they both have their...peculiarities, and as you do not currently have any lodgings, I thought it might suit both our purposes well if you stayed here in my absence. I would, of course, leave you detailed instructions, as well as remove the more dangerous articles I possess. What say you?”

The Mule digested this for some moments. At length he raised his head and said, “You want me to house-sit while you go off God-killing.”

Sassaflash blinked. “A blunt way to put it, but yes, that is the gist of it.”

“No. I ain’t a-going to do it.”

“Ah.” The necromancer’s face fell. “...Very well. I confess to being a bit disappointed, but no matter. Thank you for hearing my request, in any case.” She squeezed her way out from behind the desk, sending a few stray leaves of close-written paper fluttering to the floor. “I’ll leave a note for Parchment, and be off tonight; as it happens, I’ve been packed for a week and a half now.” She was just trotting past the Mule, bound for the spiral staircase that led down into her dungeon lair, when a thought occurred to her and, pausing, she turned and said, “If I may ask, why did you refuse?”

With a note of mild surprise in his voice, as if what he was saying was the most natural and obvious thing in the world, the Mule responded, “Because I’m coming with you, o’ course.”

“What?” The Dark Lord froze, staring blankly at the old creature. He gave a shrug.

“What I said. I’m coming with you. If I can’t convince you not to go, they ain’t no way I’m a-going to let you go up against all them monsters and beastes and Gods all by your lonesome.”

“No. No! Absolutely not!” Whipping around and sending an umbrella rack filled with ancient scrolls clattering to the floor, Sassaflash stomped over to the stairs and, turning, gestured for the Mule to stay put. “I cannot let you risk your life again for one of my schemes. This is my sin, and my penance; not yours. Besides, your wife would kill me if I ever let anything happen to you.”

“If’n you say so, Miss Sassaflash,” said the Mule, halting at the head of the stairs. “Only I ain’t exactly innocent myself. I helped you all along the way, you know. You couldn’t’a done it without your minion.” He paused. “Have you packed up some food?”

“Of course I packed food,” came the muffled call from below. “It’s in the kitchen; several small haybales and plenty of pemmican. I have done this before, you know.” She emerged from below, a saddlebag slung over her back. “If you’re feeling guilty about aiding and abetting my crimes, by all means...I don’t know, go do community service or something. Pick up litter. Something safe.”

The Mule, who had ambled into the kitchen, poked his head into the study and said, “Maybe I will, maybe I will. You sure this is enough food? It don’t seem like much.” He tilted his head, eyeing the Dark Lord. “What are you looking for?”

“My copy of the Ponypei Scriptures, if you must know. I had it out to study a week or two ago, and I seem to have neglected to put it back in place. And if you think there’s not enough food, just pack more. I can’t attend to every detail, Mr. Mule. I expect more initiative from you.”

“Yes, Miss Sassaflash. Sorry, Miss Sassaflash. I reckon that’s what you’re looking for over there, ain’t it? No, higher; inside the ribcage. The other ribcage, I meant, next to the giant eye in a bottle.” The Mule ambled out of the kitchen, travel-sized haybales and packages of pemmican strapped securely to his sides, along with a collection of pots and pans, spirit lamps, and lamp oil. “D’you reckon maybe you should bring along an extra bedroll, just in case the other gets lost or torn up?”

Sassaflash emerged from amid the stacks of books and nodded. “That seems advisable. Just a moment, let me fetch one from the dungeon.”

The Dark Lord disappeared down the spiral stairs, the clack of hooves on wood fading away below. Lowering himself carefully to the floor, his burden swaying slightly at his back, the Mule looked idly about. It was a nice house, he reflected, even if a little unconventionally decorated, and it would have been pleasant to house-sit. He hoped Angel and Crowded Parchment, whoever and whatever he was, would enjoy taking care of—

“Mr. Mule.” Turning, the Mule saw Sassaflash standing at the head of the stairs and glaring at him. He returned the look with a cheerful smile.

“Yes, Miss Sassaflash?”

Raising an eyebrow, she observed, “You appear to have loaded yourself up with supplies. Extra food, too.”

“Yes, Miss Sassaflash. I don’t reckon you could’a carried it all by your lonesome”

“And you just tricked me into getting another bedroll.”

“Suggested, not tricked.”

“You also appear to have packed—is that a sheaf of worrywort? And raskovnik?”

“Might could be you’d see the Elder Sign again, or something like it, and need to forget it in a hurry. Best to be careful, I reckon.”

“I seem to recall saying that you were not coming along on this expedition.”

“You did, at that,” agreed the Mule, amicably. He made no movement to remove the items strapped to his back.

For a long, long moment the two stared at each other, lit by the eerie glow of Sassaflash‘s lantern and by a few rogue fragments of sunlight, reflected off the upper storey windows of the house across the lane. The Mule tilted his head to one side, asking an unspoken question.

Then the Dark Lord Sassaflash laughed—a genuine laugh, happy and colored with a note of relief. Trotting forward, she swung the front door wide, sending a burst of fresh air rushing into the dusty, mouldering house. Yellowed papers fluttered into the air, drifting and flapping like great pallid moths startled from their rest. Turning back to face her friend, she said, “Why not! Why not, in the end? I submit; turn out the light, shutter the house, and follow me. We have a train to catch. You are certain you want to do this?”

“I’m certain, Miss Sassaflash.”

“Then come, Mr. Mule. Let’s go kill Cthulhu!”

Author's Note:

Well. So it ends! Hopefully satisfactorily, although it is, oddly enough considering the giant world-devouring monsters featured in this tale, rather a quieter ending than that of my last story. Here's hoping it satisfies!

Lessee, now. Before closing up shop and shuttering the windows, there are some things I rather need to say. First, I want to express my immense gratitude to The Masked Ferret, without whose prompting and editing help this story would have been written far more slowly and imperfectly, and possibly not at all. Similarly, I have to thank my mother, who also offered invaluable editing help, and who continues to baffle me with her pride in the fact that I'm writing MLP fanfics. A mother's love knows no bounds, I suppose. And lastly, of course, I'd like to thank you—all you wonderful readers and commenters, who've been willing to give this tale a chance, and who've encouraged me with your thoughtful critiques, helpful impressions, and gratifying reactions. Thank you, all of you!

So, whither now? I'm still considering tackling a Celestia fic, as I believe I mentioned earlier, but if I do embark on that particular journey it'll be a little while coming; at present, there are a few other writing projects I'd like to focus on, most particularly an attempt to write a faithful interpretation of Lovecraft's Necronomicon (all 800+ pages. Yes, I know I'm insane), and an original science-fantasy tale of my own. Who knows, though? I certainly didn't have any intention of writing fanfiction at all before the season two finale aired, and yet within a day of watching it I'd banged out the first chapter of Mendacity, because dagnabbit, that story needed to be told. Perhaps the same thing will happen again. Season six is coming...

...Oh, right, I almost forgot. For those wondering, the planet George is an astronomy in-joke of sorts. Poor Uranus never really had a chance when it came to getting a nice, dignified name that schoolchildren wouldn't snicker at on the playground, and actually the name it ended up with is arguably better than the alternatives that were suggested at the time, which included Herschel, Neptune George the Third, and Georgium Sidus ("George's Star"). I find the idea of the planet George to be so hilarious that I couldn't help throwing it in.

Comments ( 78 )

Finally! Time to finish reading this tale!

And then....Oh, boy. I have the task of annotating this one ahead of Me then. This is going to be a looong few weeks.... :facehoof:

....That may be one of the funniest last lines I've ever read. I almost feel like You wrote this entire story just so You could end it like that. :twilightsheepish:

Also, great to see You managed to reference the fact that--in this scheme of things--Tirek is basically the equivalent of a lesser Old One, devouring magic to ascend ever higher towards a proper apotheosis. That, and the reference to "George." Really, man? Really? Well, I can't say I blame You.

Oh, and I absolutely love how--even if it isn't referenced explicitly--Our interpretation of the Tillinghast Continuum/Ghooric Zone leaked into this story to permit Sassaflash to conjure Starswirl the Bearded inside Her mind. But there is one concern for Our wayward heroes' plans; supposing They somehow succeed at taking down Their new target--and survive that experience as well--will She try for the other Two as well? (Well, technically Three. I'm counting Nug and Yeb as one, here.) Because if so, that could have unfortunate long-term consequences for Equestria, supposing either of Them function for that world the way They function for Earth in the Necronomicon You've been working on. Suddenly subtracting either from the equation could be bad. Very bad.

Refresh the feed I thought, it's only time to sleep, just see what non-urgent stories are waiting for you tomorrow.

Before this story I had always shied away from lovecraftian Horror. I do not like to be frightened... And in my foolish youth I thought that Horror meant naught but jumpscares and gore.

It is complete, and even now I sit in bed awake far too late, just thinking of the hideously beautiful world you introduced me to. Now I search for those written by Lovecraft, and seek to submerge myself in the depth of 'Call of Cthulu'

I feel the palpitable sense of dread, not unlike that felt in the halls of Voormithadreth. Though for me it is the spectar of ending that hangs over me, incompehensably torturing me. No longer shall I witness the Mule and Sassaflash as they escape the 'things that should not be.'

I hope one day to return to these not-quite heroes. I can only hope to imagine their trips into the depths of Equestria's Oceans, and they try to figure out how to kill something that has no concept of ending built into it. I think now of the difficulties they would have dealing with the submerged lost cities and the changed ponies that now reside in the depths. "Shoobi Doo Cthulu Fhtagn"

Thank for keeping me up far to late.

6906120 I'd recommend going here for the corrected versions of the texts, as the editors of magazines and anthologies had a tendency to mangle Lovecraft's prose:

http://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/fiction/

"The Call of Cthulhu" is most definitely a good starting point for immortal God-Monsters. If You want a bleak, atmospheric masterpiece that conveys possibly the most alien alien being in fiction, read "The Colour Out of Space." If You want a Gothic exploration of poisoned lineage, ancient enormities, and a superb rendition of Horror in its most literal sense--a visceral feeling of fear tinged with sheer moral repulsion--read "The Rats in the Walls." (Just be forewarned of racial epithets. Lovecraft wanted to pay homage to the beloved family cat He had as a child by naming a cat in this tale after said pet, and because times were very different back then the cat's name was....Nigger-Man.) If You want a fantastic blending of classical horror, Medieval christian superstitions, and modern quantum mechanics (and it's as mind-bending as it sounds) go for "The Dreams in the Witch-House," a personal favorite. If You want an oppressing atmosphere of paranoia and desolation that facilitates long stretches of brooding dread punctuated by brief moments of stark terror, reach for "The Shadow Over Innsmouth."

Very Good.

First, my impression on the time travel part and explanation. It is consistent within itself, by that I mean non-contradictory. That alone is already something that is frequently not done. You've managed a closed time loop, while at the same time explaining why only closed time loops are the only possible result. Causality, while sort of hand-waved away, at least it is explained why it is not explained. And honestly, it makes sense. I've come to the conclusion multiple times that free will, very likely does not exist. And at the same time, I've failed each and every one of those times to grasp that thought at a subconscious level. No sane human mind is built capable of accepting the complete non-existence of free will at a fundamental level. (Not that I'm saying free will cannot exist, but simply that even accepting the possibility that free will does not exist is extremely difficult if at all possible for the average sapient being).

I really did like that part. This is honestly the first story I've read where time travel is executed in a way that is both beneficial to the plot and does not contain massive contradictions or things that simply don't make sense.

Honestly, I'm quite pleasantly surprised. It's a story that contains time travel that does not contain any obvious gaping plot holes. Not only that, it actually fits into the canon of what actually happened in the show.

I also just generally like the personality of the characters. Balanced out, and typically non shallow personalities. Writing is also good. I have to say, this is one of my favorite stories I've read recently. I started reading this expecting a comedy (due to the description). I finished a well thought out story that is the first to contain a character that I feel I genuinely understand and I do not feel the need to call an idiot at times.

Only thing I liked less was the ending. Just the last 2 lines, somehow didn't really feel fitting for me. Probably is just me though.

TL,DR: Story good. Me like.

"towards town hall"
"towards the town hall"?

And so it ends, and happily! For a given value of "happily". :)

"Thank you, all of you!"
You're welcome, and thank you for writing. :)

re George:
Heh, neat. :)

Well then.

Now THAT was a ride.

The story comes to an end, the world is restored, and they who are not heros prepare for the adventure to which this is but a foreword.

And Azeroth gazes accross the multiverses,

And Christopher Lee responds.

YES, MY LORD.

Really liked this story.
Well done!

Huzzah! It's always good to see a fic that manages to finish, and I must admit this one ties up very well here at the end. It's also an ending that's delightfully mixed in its tone: everything worked out alright for everyone else, yet our intrepid heroes are setting out on a mission that will almost certainly end in either death or insanity.

This is definitely a fic I shall recommend to others, at any rate. That and it even drew me in and kept my attention, despite my general apathy for most things Lovecraftian, which deserves kudos as well.

That ending... It's just so perfect. The way Mr.Mule simply appeals to every villain's need of a minion to worm himself into her company. I admit, I was hoping for a confrontation with Celestia, but it's probably better like this.

It is a truly valuable minion who ensures that his dark lord maintains a sense of self-awareness. A truly valuable friend as well.

Oh ho. Now that is a clever way to avoid paradox. Rather convenient that that particular device survived banishment, but I could see Sombra intentionally leaving it behind. IT seems like just the sort of spiteful gesture that goes with dragging his empire with him.

I love the names for the planets. Thank you for explaining the origin of George; I'd have asked if you hadn't.

Wonderful symbolism in the pyre. This really is a rebirth for Sassaflash, and not just because she had to reconstitute her body.

And that last scene was magnificent, especially the last line. Thank you for another incredible adventure. Here's to whatever's next. :pinkiehappy:
(That being said, it's kind of a shame that Sassaflash will be leaving Ponyville, considering how many other myths will realize themselves around the Mane Six, and to say nothing of Twilight's own apotheosis. Still, these two have much, much bigger fish to fry.)

Almost three years to the end- but good long journeys need time to come to fruition.

Well worth the trip.

Well I guess Sassy's done with Cthulhu she finds some time to come home and rub muzzles with Caramel in Hearts and Hooves and then I think help with the tornado in Hurricane Fluttershy.

Before I begin reading, what is this a crossover with?

6907658 The Lovecraft Mythos, Friend. Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, and all those other boggity beasties. And quite a wonderfully executed crossover, at that.

There are others, slumbering in deep and hidden places—and I mean to hunt them down.

Umm...
Nyarlathotep-pony is going to be pissed
:rainbowderp:

Maybe they will go after him first?
:rainbowdetermined2:

Let’s go kill Cthulhu!

That is going to make for one bloody big sushi party!

Thanks for an entertaining read!
Really enjoyed it and cannot wait to see what you do next!
:yay:

6908416

Umm...

Nyarlathotep-pony is going to be pissed

:rainbowderp:

Maybe they will go after him first?

:rainbowdetermined2:

....Yeah, no. That's impossible. And I don't mean in the sense of killing Tsathoggua, where it should be impossible, it actually is. The Great Old Ones are nothing more than Gods. Nyarlathotep and Its merry band of gibbering abominations are--in a very literal sense--Reality. Aspects of Yog-Sothoth, and all that. And then above the sentient multiverse, there's Azathoth, and THAT Thing is Two metric tonnes of Nope in a Twenty pound bag.

But Sassaflash is thinking smart. The reason Great Cthulhu is referred to as the "High Priest" of those vaster powers is because It focuses Their collective will upon where It resides; taking Great Cthulhu out next may just make it harder for Nyarlathotep to find Her and Mister Mule.

This was a blast! I came in a little late but have enjoyed every chapter none-the-less. I must say bravo for making a great story and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.:twilightsmile:

6906109
Heh heh. I confess, I've been sitting on "Let's go kill Cthulhu" for at least half a year now, and probably longer. Don't fret about the consequences of our duo's little deicidal rampage too much; there are differences between the conception of the Great Old Ones I'm using for the Necronomicon and the versions in this tale (for one thing, the Necronomicon Tsathoggua doesn't rely on reality-warping to keep itself intact).

6906120
I'm very glad you enjoyed it so much—and glad, too, that I may have introduced you to the world of Lovecraftian horror! It's an acquired taste, certainly, and you'll want to bear in mind that Lovecraftian tales generally end much less cheerfully than this one does (sometimes comically so; there are one or two stories that end, hilariously, with the protagonist being stalked by some unspeakable horror and instead of, y'know, running, they just keep on writing out their breathless account of their last moments. "I can hear it flopping loathsomely against the door!" etc.), but they can be very enjoyable in a creeping dread sort of way, nonetheless.

6906308
I actually could have had a longer explanation of the precise mechanics of time travel, but I didn't want to detract from the flow of the story. The explanation Sassaflash would have given the Mule would have been that, basically, the entire time loop—and time itself, for that matter—were more or less set by the initial conditions of the universe. Quantum mechanically, deviation from that most probable state is permitted, but because all the actors involved are classical, such a deviation is extremely unlikely (Sassaflash could have chosen to split the timeline—except she really couldn't have, because that wasn't who she'd become as a pony, and such a decision would require her mind to be arranged differently than it was). That doesn't mean that timeline splitting (and thus, shattering a potential closed time loop) is impossible; as long as one didn't mind facing the Hounds, one could easily go back in time and, say, kill one's own grandmother, cleaving reality into two branches—just that it was effectively impossible in this particular case.

Anyway, that aside, I'm very glad that you enjoyed the story, and that the characters rang true for you! Sorry the ending didn't quite satisfy, though. Oh, and honestly, I started writing this expecting a comedy, or at least expecting it to be much lighter than ended up being the case. My next story, I think, whatever it will be, should be more consistently light; solemnity and grimness have their place, but they can be absolutely draining to write.

6906369
In a Lovecraftian story, really, "for a given value of happily" is effectively happily. No one's face was eaten by oozing monstrosities from the elder dark! Hoofbumps all around!

6906487
Indeed!

6906686
I'm not sure if this is precisely what you were referencing, but that reminds me of a scene involving Death, from the Discworld books, encountering the Death of Universes. I'm not sure what the Death of Great Old Ones looks like, but perhaps it will find itself needing to sharpen its scythe...

6906930
Many thanks!

6907077
Thank you very much! I'm glad the ending worked; I had some doubts about it, but it's very good to see that so far, at least, they seem to have been unfounded, judging from y'all's reactions.

6907126
I would have liked to include a meeting with Celestia, but unfortunately I just couldn't figure out a graceful way to fit the idea in (or to deal with the problem that if Celestia knows, Nyarlathotep knows too, because he'd be keeping close tabs on her)—and in any case, the chapter was quite long enough as it was. Which is a great shame, because there was one final plot detail I really wanted to throw in. If you'll indulge me, the idea is that after Sassaflash's confession, either she would have figured out or Celestia would have told her that she (Celestia) had her own long game in place, and her own solution to the looming threat of the Great Old Ones. For slightly less than a thousand years, Celestia had been the only alicorn in existence in Equestria—and then Cadance was uplifted. Then Luna was freed. At the time of Rise and Fall, of course, Twilight is also being actively groomed for apotheosis, and with Shining Armor and Cadance's upcoming wedding, Celestia can expect a fifth alicorn to be born. Essentially what she's hoping to do is to trigger a runaway alicorn-ification of Equestria, relying on both the children of alicorns and alicorns uplifting their own friends and family to shift the entire population into a race of beings so powerful that, collectively, they can stand against a Great Old One—and doing it so suddenly that by the time Nyarlathotep figures out what's going on, it's too late for it to be worth his while to intervene.

6907301
Thank you for reading! The Somber Gate was a little convenient, it's true; I hoped, though, that the foreshadowing of its existence (if you'll recall, the Mule and Sassaflash pass by it waaaay back when they're first entering Hippoborea, although Sassaflash doesn't explain its properties at the time) was enough to make it palatable.

6907500
I'm glad you enjoyed it!

6907502
Someone suggested this earlier on in the comments, and I might as well canonize it: Caramel is actually possessed by a member of the Great Race of Yith, and Sassaflash suspects and is trying to get close to him in order to extract information from him. While I'm at it, another detail I didn't get to put in the story: she also strongly suspects that Lyra is a changeling, disguised and feeding on Bon Bon's love.

6908416
You're very welcome; thank you for reading and for commenting!

6908680 That's a rather interesting idea with the Alicorns. That....

....That sounds like the kind of plan Nyarlathotep could potentially hi-jack to generate a Lloigor from the Equestrian population to replace the one(s) Sassaflash will have removed by the time that plan is in full swing. Celestia will have to be veeery careful or She'll end up making the situation much, much worse. Like, Yuggoth worse.

Also, the idea of Caramel as a member of the Great Race of Yith. If one were to interpret His relationship with Sassaflash as romantic--as done bellow--that....Would actually make a LOT of sense. One of the brighter members of the only species to consistently escape the Crawling Chaos' wrath and the only known mortal to commit serial deicide. I imagine They'd spend a great deal of time exchanging notes.

Oh, and to be fair Tsathoggua does still rely on a bit of reality-warping--of a sort--in the Necronomicon; generating unreality fast enough to cancel out the misfortune Yog-Sothoth is flinging at It, and all. But You are right, the version of Tsathoggua in Rise and Fall clearly warps the laws of physics around Itself to nest into a pocket reality out of Yog-Sothoth's reach. (Tir na nOg, anyone?)


By the way, with the Lovecraft tales that end with the protagonist writing unto death, it's at least justified in "Dagon" because said narrator is very unhinged and the supposed "threat" that sends Him over the windowsill may just be a paranoid delusion. "The Diary of Alonzo Typer" has no such in-narrative justification, however, and is all the more absurd because Typer manages to get a final Two or Three lines written down while being dragged into the cellar by giant black talons. But, that tale is a revision, and one for a client that had no talent of their own and whom Lovecraft tolerated out of amusement. On the whole--barring certain revisions and collaborations-- there's a natural trend upward in quality the later in Lovecraft's life one goes.

(Oh, and one last little aside about Your response to Reese. With oozing monstrosities from the Elder Dark, face-eating isn't so much of a risk. That's more the kind of thing You need worry about when faced down by legions of inbred and devolved "people" in the Catskills; Martense et alia. I bring it up because that particular sequence in "The Lurking Fear" has always been an unnerving favorite, and the mere mention of someone's face being eaten off forces it back on My recollection.)

6908680
Heh, point. :)
[hoofbumps]

6908680
that is a hilarious long term plan on Celestia's part

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this. It was a good time.

6908680 I love how, with regards to Lyra and Bon Bon, Sassaflash has hit SO close to the truth that she has found its exact opposite.

That's a fantastic ending. I never would have guessed the twist with the Somber Gate, but it fits perfectly into the story. The further adventures of Sassaflash and Mule sound like they will be intriguing, and I want to commend you for finding a way to write a Lovecraft story that actually has earned its happy ending!

Fantastic. Absolutely bloody fantastic. I just wish I had something to say that's not been said already.

Anyway, eagerly looking forward to where you go next.

I haven't read this series yet, but I'm curious as to what mlp is being crossed over with. Anyone care to divulge?

6909518
Thank you for reading and commenting!

6910754
Glad you enjoyed it! Earning a happy ending does take just a little more work in a Lovecraftian universe than in most others, but it can be done. It helps, of course, if one exists in a cosmos that has the optimism of the MLP-verse to balance out the cosmic nihilism.

6910822
As am I! It'll be a while yet before I have anything to show, but I don't think this'll be my last ponyfic.

6914198
H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. ...Yeah. It's an odd mix.

6914427 It is rather a challenging contrast, the tone of MLP and Lovecraft. In a world where Discord actually is a Great Old One, his reformation is all the more incredible. I can only imagine Sassaflash's reaction to the idea of reforming Discord with friendship.

Wow what an incredible story I can't say enough about how amazing this story was. Thank you very much for writing it. I was thoroughly entertained. It had everything plot intrigue, magic ,mystery, fighting, danger, horror, character development, friendship, world building an incredibly talented and clever protagonist. 10/10

Ok. This may be the best story on the site. Coming from me that is quite the compliment. I've been reading FIMFics since before season 1 was 10 episodes old, back when Google Docs was the most common format. I've read hundreds of stories and millions of words. This one is among the special few that I consider master works.

What makes it so good? First the writing style. You have at least eleven herbs and spices. The recipe is complicated. Second, you use almost exclusively original characters and settings and yet they're absolutely as deep as well developed cannon characters. You certainly don't need no crutches! Third, and I think this is what really makes it the best, you have a plot line that is clever and complicated without being hard to understand. It is unique. A god slaying pegasus with plans within plans within plans? A side kick that would have been overlooked by any and all other Dark Lords? It all unfolds as you go and some chapters leave your jaw agape. And finally, the story contained the required character development and emotional moments that make it on par with any classic.

I hope you continue writing. I know people don't read much anymore. Perhaps a writing career can drift into cinema or games or some new format yet to be invented. The world needs talent. I mean, I saw the latest Star Wars and I can tell you, there's a lack of story telling talent out there! I'd love to see this story done in gritty, realistic 3D as a movie. For now the FIM world gets you readers you might not get in a more generic online fiction setting, so consider sticking with FIM for practice for a while. After all, this story could be adapted to other settings and work just as well since it is mostly original and readers dont' need a lot of FIM trivia before starting in to the story.

Anyhow, thanks for writing this and thanks even more for finishing it. That puts you in the top 10% just because of that!

Oh boy.
Ooooh

boy.

You continue to be my favorite fanfiction author. Very rarely does a story enrapture me in the same way that yours do. From the incredible characters whom I love, to the way you play with the negative space through dialogue--which I also love--I've found myself carefully picking out voices and imagining each scene, rereading passages and trying to fully appreciate them because the fact of the matter is that this story is worth the extra effort. Other stories I can read in passing or without investment and still enjoy them, but I can't do that with this one because I know I'll only be doing myself a disservice if I don't give it the attention it deserves.

I still think the way you tie in these darker mythos and supernatural elements into the universe is so seamless, but if there's anything I really love, it's on a much more microcosmic level but still somehow just as important; the dynamic between Mule and Sassaflash. More than just Red vs Blue or The Straight Man and the Fool, they compliment each other in a way that extends further than comedic chemistry. Mule was so intrinsic to Sassaflash's development--and in a much subtler way, vice versa--and getting to see the impact of that over the course of the story was the most satisfying thing. I think that's ultimately why the ending left me feeling so warm and fuzzy. Sassaflash's proposal at the was both impressive and disheartening, but ultimately, Mule reminded me that the two of them will do as they do. Whatever that may be.

But hey. Suffice it to say Everything Was Good and I'll always be looking forward to your next project! Sad as I may be that this story comes to a close (though the feeling is much less hollow than most instances) I can't wait to see what you'll be doing in the future!

Into favorites and must reread you go.

This story has been excellent from start to finish, but I must say that closing line is particularly striking.

800+ pages of Necronomicon? If you don't mind me asking, how did you arrive at that figure? Lovecraft himself never provided more than fragments, if I remember aright.


6908680
These semi-canon ideas of yours are interesting. Perhaps sometime down the line you could do a oneshot or two to fully develop them? If other projects don't seize all your attention, anyway. Celestia could easily manage to track Sassaflash down during her serial deicide (because after the first two, the pattern isn't hard to discern and there are only so many around) and/or on a break in her travels Sassaflash could become suspicious of Caramel and uses Hearts and Hooves day to get close (while casually noting Lyra and Bonbon also out for the holiday and musing on Lyra's likely changeling-hood). Or, being the one of us with more writing talent, you'll think of something better to do with the ideas or just have other things to write instead.

6924570 Actually, in "The Dunwich Horror" the extensive quote concerning Yog-Sothoth and the Old Ones is referenced as being on page 781.* Of course, there is a little lee-way, at least; old tomes tend to have formatting that eats up pages quite a bit: large font, wide margins on the sides, etc. And this edition--without going into it, since it's not Mine to discuss in-depth--isn't exactly the Latin version by Olaus Wormius that was consulted in that tale. Plus, I suppose if all else fails He could play with the page size a bit if He manages to get close to that size but not quite.



*Part of the reason I've been helping with the project in question is because I'm a huge nerd with no life and remember granular details of the Mythos like that off the top of My head. I also have some ideas of My own that He found rather interesting; You'll get to learn of one of them when I finish the annotations on Sassaflash and You have access to the entry for Hastur.

6925460
Ah, I forgot he supplied page numbers. It's been a few years since the last time I reread most of his stories.

Don't forget illustrations and diagrams, those would probably take up a lot of space in many editions, too.

6926046 Well, I don't know about a lot, but there will be illustrations and diagrams in this version. Our talented author is a bit of a savant; aside from being great at writing, proficient with mathematics, and knowledgeable on science and history, He's also (I can verify first-hand) quite good at illustration. On a related note, getting a proper idea of Tsathoggua's form is about as unsettling as You'd expect. :pinkiesick:

6915272
I'm very glad you enjoyed it; thank you for reading it!

6917843
Wow. I don't know that my tale deserves such high praise (there wasn't a single chapter I put up that didn't have a small list of problems bouncing around in the back of my head that I just hadn't quite been able to figure out how to solve), but thank you very much, regardless; I'm delighted you enjoyed it so much! It's interesting that you should mention adapting Rise and Fall to a non-MLP setting; I've actually been contemplating doing just that for a while (not sure if I've mentioned that here or not), with the idea being to set it in North America and Greenland during 1887-1888 and to tie the events of the tale into the Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 and the last recorded swarm of the Rocky Mountain locust in the same year.

6919528
I'm just glad that my stories seem to strike such chord; thank you very much! ...On a completely unrelated note, by the by, am I correct in remembering that you put together a beautiful piece of music partly inspired by Mendacity? The Unseelie Court March, if my music collection can be trusted. I seem to recall you mentioning that it was going to be performed with actual instruments as part of a college project, rather than the (still lovely) synth version you shared with me. Did anything ever come of that? If you're willing to share it, I would absolutely love to hear the finished version.

6924530
And with that, you give voice to one of my Lovecraftian pet peeves. The Hounds have so much potential to be truly alien beings, and yet most artists just draw them as bony dogs with a few too many teeth! That is not what a fundamentally Other organism should look like! "Or had they bodies? I saw them only for a moment; I cannot be certain..."

...Erm. Sorry. I have strong feelings on this subject.

Yet another perimeter-canon gem from your pen. I'm still amazed at the fact that you wrote a Lovecraft ponyfic that wasn't even a true crossover, existing seamlessly with canon, and somehow pulled it off. Tell me where your wizard school is. This one wasn't quite as tight as "Mendacity" (Sweetie Belle was confusingly underused and it seems like you shifted gears midway through the creative process with her inclusion) and some of the exotic word choices bordered on the fetishistic (especially in scenes that required whatever six-dollar word to be repeated over and over) but all in all this was a beautiful tour de force performance, amazing in its ability to get me to take a second look at the creepiness underneath this universe, not only the elements you inserted but also the stuff that's always been there in canon that we fail to see beneath the pastel coating. Lovely work.

6935039

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much! It's true, there were definite...issues with Sweetie Belle's presence in the tale; I had originally intended for her to have a far more prominent role when I was planning the tale and working on the first few chapters, but unfortunately I wasn't able to make those plans pan out quite as I had wished. It's good to know, though, that the story still mostly worked, despite that bungle on my part!.

Oh. Oh, I see. So that's how they're resetting the timeline. Very, very, very clever. And that's why it was so important to not modify anything that original model Sassaflash knew, you can't adjust events so that it was all a dream if anything post-time jump clues her in that timey shenanigans are going on.

The best part of this is, we the readers don't actually know that it wasn't originally all a dream in the first place! It might have been! Beautifully done.

I especially like that one outcome of this is that dead squirrel Sassaflash is the only Sassaflash that remains in the timeline, with the exception of her former skull that she kept as a souvenir and reminder of what happened (and what didn't).

“Then come, Mr. Mule. Let’s go kill Cthulhu!”

*standing ovation*
That was pretty much a perfectly executed ending. What a great story.

6907952 Thanks. Can I read this story and enjoy it without prior knowledge about the genre?

6974223 You can, but there will be more than a few unpronounceable words. Actually, as it is now I'm currently working on an annotated edition of the story with the Author's help, to explain the various Mythos elements and ponified historical figures/places/books referenced, so You may like to consult that after You've read the story as-is.

There is a minor reference to an element from a previous story this Author wrote that part of the plot hinges on, but since it only gets a brief mention I can just explain it here for You. In the swamps around the mountain Canterlot rests on there is, in this canon, a powerful and fairly benevolent magical beastie called the Bugul Noz or "Night Shepard" that makes a habit of nullifying any magic introduced into Its domain completely.

Heartwarming ending there. Really enjoyed this story, and picked up some lovecraft lore to boot! Also, the idea that Sassaflash can keep her own actual skull on the mantlepiece or shelf without dying first is just giggleworthy. =)

One detail escapes me however. In chapter 20 Sassaflash mentions

Celestia and Luna drained themselves in their battle with Discord, and without their wards in place I was able to travel back in time to this morning.

Assuming that this was still a requirement for time travel, it seems odd Somberflash managed it when there wasn't a Battle of The Gods to tear the wards. Does this have something to do with the fact she did it in her own headspace/Somber_Gate, which she hinted Mule could be a reality unto itself? A different point of origin, so to speak, to get past the wards?

6981520

Consarnit, I should have covered that detail in-story; I knew there was something I'd forgotten. The time travel worked because, at the time it was attempted, back in central Equestria Discord had put Celestia and Luna out of commission, and so for that brief period of time the normal wards they had set up to prevent time travel and various other nasty forms of magic were also not in effect. It wasn't the Godwar itself that allowed the time travel, remember, but Celestia and Luna's defeat—and since they allowed themselves to be temporarily defeated in the real timeline, time travel was also possible during that interval. That aside, though, I'm very glad you enjoyed the tale!

6962763
Many thanks for reading, and I'm glad the tale met with satisfaction! To answer a question from some of your earlier comments, I had actually been planning to include a brief reference, after all was said and done, to the Dark Lord suddenly realizing that the very fact that she was able to reconstitute herself from her collection of corpses should have clued her into the fact that she had either split the timeline then and there, or that she had successfully erased the reality of Equestria's destruction; it got left out because, erm, I forgot to include that particular bit of dialog. It's not of great importance anyway, but even so...dagnabbit.

6981520 I assumed it was because those wards still allow "safe" time-travel that forms a stable loop, and Starswirl's spell includes fail-safes to only allow the formation of stable loops. (See Twilight's use of that spell in "It's About Time.") As per Sassaflash not immediately realizing this, it's kind of a "couldn't see the forest for the trees" situation; She's got much more important things on Her mind while it's happening.

Started this when it first came out, but stopped reading when I realised how much I enjoyed it (because I'd rather not read at all than read something that gets cancelled). Anyhow...

Nicely done, although I did think the 'fall' was a little too brief and significantly less glorious than the 'rise'. That may be because the 'rise' was really, really good -- I especially liked the encounter with the Thing (I refuse to go hunting for the correct name and spelling!) under the mountain and the use and erasing of the Elder Sign; very clever.

I really would have liked to have seen more of the Godwar -- I kind of see why you didn't, but I felt cheated.

Still, it was a good read, and thank you for getting it to completion.

6985857 It's Tsathoggua. It's really easy to remember, man. If You want difficult, I've committed the proper spelling for Hziulquoigmnzah's name to memory. Not to mention "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn."

Besides, Tsathoggua's name is easy to remember because it's fun to say. Tsathoggua, Tsath-OGGua. Tsathoggua!

6986993
Two can play at that game! What about Fjfbgsrdubv? Or Pjgfbvskebg?

Anyway, I won't commit those Names to memory, because I think they are not just names, but invitations. To remember them, to be able to spell them, or worse, pronounce them, gives the mind a shape, a particular pattern in the neurons that is tasty. Nice knowing you, try not to destroy reality when you leave.

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