Sweetie Belle rarely had guests join her for tea time. Her parents were usually out of town, her sister was busy, and her friends thought it was all too foalish, even when Sweetie didn’t invite any of her dolls. Today, however, she had a very special guest. No, not a friend guilted into joining her. Not Discord playing along just to annoy Rarity. Not even Button Mash tied to the chair (which she’d only done three times and always apologized after, so she didn’t see what the big deal was).
No, today she was hosting Mr. ████████, who was just passing through the realm of fleeting mortal existence when he was held up in Ponyville briefly. Of course, ████████ wasn’t his real name, but his true name couldn’t be spoken in Equestrian, and pronouncing those unspeakable syllables in his own twisted and alien language would shatter the barriers between worlds, granting untold and unknowable horrors access to Equestria, and destroying the minds of any pony unfortunate enough to hear them.
She should know. She’d tried when Rarity came in and demanded to know who Sweetie was talking to.
Her big sister was still lying in the doorway, convulsing and gibbering nonsense about the all-consuming darkness that slept beyond the ends of time.
And Sweetie had only made it through the first two syllables!
“Are you sure she’ll be okay, Mr. ████████?” Sweetie asked as she poured him another cup of tea.
████████ took the cup in one of his infinite tentacles which stretched impossibly into the endless gap between worlds in which his corporeal form dwelt, an unknowable number of his countless eyes glancing towards the twitching white unicorn on the floor. He opened the nearest few of his billion mouths in reply, but did not answer with words. Indeed, his speech produced not sound, but the absolute absence thereof, as though reality itself were recoiling aghast at the very idea of his maddening words. And still the silence itself foretold such terrible catastrophe that within would be heard the screams of entire worlds dying, a swan song for the very notion of life itself.
“Oh, okay then,” Sweetie answered, preparing a new cup for herself. “I guess she does do something like this on a pretty regular basis, after all. Last week, Opal clawed up her maroon fabric and Rarity was having a fit. So I suggested she just use the burgundy instead, and she went into hysterics for an hour."
Something like what a mortal being would call a chuckle escaped ████████, and the unspeakable sound reverberated through all of time and space, carrying with it the promise of oblivion. In every corner of every possible world, the living heard it and felt a sudden subtle dread as they realized how feeble and transient their own existences were. When he spoke again, his words would echo, incomprehensible, through the nightmares of everything that had ever lived.
“Aw, I didn’t know you liked cats, Mr. ████████! But yeah, they can be a hoofful.” Sweetie Belle shook her head and smiled. “If you even knew all of the things Opal got into. I’d love to introduce you, but she’s been hiding under the dresser ever since you got here.”
Sweetie ducked down to look under the dresser.
“Yep,” she said as she sat back up. “Still there. And you’re sure that being stuck in a rictus of silent screaming horror for an hour won’t cause permanent harm to a cat, right?”
████████’s wordless response was swallowed by the yawning abyss that he dwelled within, along with all of the hopes and dreams of mortal life. Every living thing felt a chill of inescapable futility at his words.
“Yeah, you’re probably right. You have a lot more experience with mortal terror than me, after all.” Sweetie took another sip of her tea. “And if she doesn’t go back to normal, I’ll just ask Fluttershy about it. Anyway, how is your tea?”
████████ held out his cup, which Sweetie obligingly refilled, and then answered, his words cracking the very firmament of reality itself and producing a noise as though the entire world were made of glass, and all shattered at once.
“Aw, thank you!” Sweetie Belle smiled at the compliment. “Most of my friends think it’s too plain, but that’s just because they’re used to having too much sugar in it. You have good taste, Mr. ████████. Do you think you’ll be able to stay long enough to back me up when I tell my friends they drink it wrong?”
His countless appendages swayed in a manner that might have expressed a noncommittal answer from a being restrained to a mere four dimensions of existence. In ████████’s case, the patterns and strange geometries produced by even such a minor gesture created an entirely new fundamental language of reality, which students of the arcane would have gladly given up their sanity or lives to glimpse for even an instant, let alone study. And abandon those things they would, as the impossible knowledge would consume them utterly before they could even process the thought.
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Sweetie Belle’s ears folded back slightly as her face fell. But then she caught sight of the concern in ████████’s numberless eyes and forced herself to perk up again. “Aw, it’s okay! I wouldn’t want to hold you over. After all, that whole ‘confluence of worlds’ thing sounds really important. You shouldn’t be late to a once-an-aeon event like that.”
████████’s mouths formed what mortal beings would recognize as smiles, if his impossible visage hadn’t shattered their minds beyond such rational thoughts upon seeing him.
“Just, one little thing,” Sweetie said as she leaned in to give him the cutest look she could manage. “When you do that whole ‘snuffing out the light of every star’ thing, would you mind leaving ours alone? I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job or anything, but Princess Celestia is really nice, and I’d hate for her to lose the thing she got her cutie mark in.”
████████ waved his countless tentacles in a way that would have been seen as reassuring if they didn’t fill the mind and soul together with unrelenting terror. His parting words sent shudders through all those unfortunate enough to dwell on a plane that intersected his own unfathomable dimension as they felt a certainty that all of their deepest fears were about to come to life, only for that indescribable horror to suddenly vanish with his departure. And even in his absence, they would not find peace, now haunted by the void in their souls once filled with the terror of mortality.
Sweetie Belle smiled as she waved at the shrinking crevasse between worlds. “He was nice. I hope he can come back sometime.”
She slipped from her chair and trotted over towards the dresser. “Opal! You can come out now! The guests are gone!”
Author's Note
████████'s name isn't really important, and knowing it would shatter your limited mortal perception of reality.
Just know that he dwells there still, in the unseen places, awaiting the promised time at the end of all things.
