GhostOfHeraclitus fan club archive

Context, as it were

Thus shall be born the saga of Prince, Lord Hierarch Of The Nine Mysteries, General Sardonyx Ebonstone, PhD, MD, Ruler of The Seven-Pillared City, Master of the Gates of Horn and Ivory, and HERO OF EQUESTRIA! His mane is as fire, and his fetlocks as molten copper, yet the rest of him is the color of the void between stars. His heart is adamant, his mind a razor, and his eyes twin agates. All who see him tremble and despair.

He's also fictional. Which is inconvenient for world domination, but there you go.

It all started when Blueblood heard tell of the Feathered Serpent Quill, said to be the last gift of the Feathered Serpent to his people, plucked from his own resplendent and iridescent plumage. Legends say than anything written by that quill would become reality and many lives were lost looking for it.  It was found, eventually, by an expedition to the Coso region, but when eager hooves used it to write "An then a mountain of gold appeared!" nothing happened, and it was stuck in a display cabinet in the Canterlot Royal Museum of Ancient History for a hundred years. However, recently, an expedition financed by Blueblood[1] discovered a second component to the artifact--an ink made of crushed diamonds.

Well, after a visit to a horrified jeweler and a confused chemist, Blueblood had the ink and, well, a noted patron of archeology like him could easily get the quill for display at a charitable ball he organized. Then it was a matter of scribbling a few lines, no more.

Yes! A mane of fire! And a mysterious identity! And great power! And being a hero, too! And Blueblood would become all this. Just write it down--dot the i's, cross the T's--oh, and marrying Rarity. A perfect wedding! That, too. Sure. Everything. Everything.

The final drop of ink spilled, the parchment blazed pure white, and then, from that glow came a personification of everything Blueblood wanted. Mane of fire. Coat of ebony. Great power, great fame, wings and a horn. And now that... thing wanted Blueblood's life. So it was written. So it must be. But, before it can dispose of the pallid original, it must fulfill that which was written. It must marry this 'Rarity.' And then, complete, it will banish Blueblood to orbital exile--short of the moon, as he was short of his aunt--and rule with an iron hoof. As is customary.

But! The misuse of the Quill draws attention from the newly formed Royal Librarian Guard[2]. Trained in combat librarianship and clandestine cataloging these elite forces quickly mobilize to counter this literary threat. A strike-squad assembles to assault Prince Ebonstone's Skull Tower Darkfort while his attention is occupied by Rarity's wedding requirements[3]. Luckily, Blueblood's writing specified a perfect wedding. And, as Rarity will tell you--even, or perhaps especially if you don't ask--you can't rush perfection.

Well, after fighting past Ebonstone's Doomguard[4] the Royal Librarian Guard found the original writing and altered it with ever more powers and ever more elaborations. Suddenly, Ebonstone was also Celestia's son. And Luna's son. And Discord's son. And also his own son. Because time-travel was involved. Only, it was a different dimension, so it's actually an alternative timeline him that's his father. Possibly. Oh, and also, he's the heir of Isildur. Whatever an 'Isildur' is. Possibly a desert topping.  And he's not just an alicorn, he's a alicorn-bicorn hybrid with two horns. Oh, and also he has cherubim pony ancestry and when angry he gets two additional pairs of wings (and he's always angry), oh, and also he has access to secret Qillin and Zebra magic, and he's the Dragon Emperor, too, because he has within him a part of a Dragon's soul, you see, and, and, and...

The length a written apparition has to complete the story and become fully real depends, in part, on how consistent it is and how simple to describe. Write a stone and it will be a stone for the end of time. But write a bicorn cherub dragon alicorn robot from the alternative future-past...

The explosion, it is said, was seen from Zebrica, though, curiously, nopony was hurt, though Blueblood was briefly launched into Low Epona Orbit. When reached for comment, he had this to say:

"Beep...beep...beep...beep..."

He was eventually recovered by a team of intrepid pony astronauts and extensive therapy managed to cure him of the firm belief that his name was Princess Laika Sputnik of Stalliongrad and get him to, more or less, normal, though he retained an irrational fear of feathers.

What's the moral of this story? Be careful what you wish for.

...

...what the hell did I just write?

[1] Well. An expedition he was subtly forced into financing to make up for a few remarks that gave the impression--utterly erroneous, of course, of course!--that he didn't realize that archeology wasn't the study of arches in architecture. To show how much he knew about archeology he was quickly remade in the public's eye as an avid patron of archeological studies. Dr. Spinning Top had heard, as a foal, that good little fillies didn't tell fibs, and so she generally stuck to great big whoppers instead.

[2] New princess, new Guard regiment.

[3] Twilight suggested they invent an implausibly long list of tasks for wedding preparations to keep Ebonstone occupied. Then she saw Rarity's actual wedding plans. All six thousand seven hundred and ninety five pages of them.

[4] They weren't even written in. He didn't recruit them, either. They just... showed up. The universe loves a good story, and you can't have a dreadfort without some suspiciously incompetent guards with face-concealing masks and impressive, yet strangely inefficient armor. Your know the sort.