Long ago, before the peaceful rule of Celestia, before the chaotic rule of Discord, before alicorns, unicorns, pegasi, and earth-ponies. There existed nothing, nothing but the Aedra and their cousins, the Daedra. Then one day, the Aedra trickster, Lorkhan, convinced them to create the world, or as it was called then "Nirn". He then trapped the Aedra there with no way out. Each generation took more and more of the divinity of their ancestors, until finally they had weakened to the point of being mortal beings. These beings were called the Ehlnofey, the "bones of Nirn", and were the first inhabitants of Nirn. Eventually, the Ehlnofey would diverge into 2-legged beings called "men" and "mer" both men and mer, for the most part, worshiped the Aedra as divine beings, and considered the Daedra to be evil, demonic creatures. Even though many of them served highly important purposes in the world, the Daedra and their worshipers were shunned and either ingored or despised by all but the wisest of any society they came into contact with.
But I could probably bore you for an eternity with the italicized lore, couldn't I? Yes, yes I could. What you need to know right now is why you should care. Well I'll tell ya. Ya see dearie, One day there was a Daedric Prince who's realm force was order, he was named Jyggalag and he was just so boring, so practical, sooooo unpopular at parties, that the other Princes just couldn't take it anymore, so they turned him into me, I, Sheogorath, the daedric prince of madness in all forms, art, chaos, hallucinations, and beautifully psychotic rage.
Basically it all started with the 3rd era of mortals and that silly little "Champion of Cyrodill", I asked him to look after my realm when I was being Jyggalag and to stop the Greymarch from making things all quiet and order-y again and what's he do? EXACTLY WHAT I TOLD HIM! The DISGRACE! So I get all order-y and stay all order-y and he takes over MY realm and it stays the same and even THAT starts to get all order-y. So everything's back to the way it was before me. But here's the thing, I still existed as meself somewhere else, in the minds of the insane, who became my possessed and blessed, so I watched the Nirn and saw all those subjects an' preists of mine buy into the lie that everything can get ALL order-y with no problems whatsoever, and get this: they even stop eatin' cheese with lettuce!
And so all the mortals started following order, so much that the even started MEASURING MAGIC! An' they turned it inta somethin' else. Science, they called it, powering computers, 'twasn't all bad mind you, there were bombs, now THOSE were fun. But anyway, the order-yness conntinued so much that they turned themselves into metal mortals that were all the same and wanted everything to be the same and measured everything in nature looking for the patterns that were supposed to be there but just weren't. And so (you'll love this next part), THEY WENT INSANE!
Hahahahahahaha! It was just the funniest thing I'd seen in 100000 years. So anyway, once they were insane they were back under my control. Jyggalag, who'd long since abolished and forget-ified all the Daedra and Aedra that were still up and about when I was hangin' around in the little pieces of all the mortal minds that hadn't been controlled yet, was powerless against me. I destroyed his boring, "orderly", and "logical" world to replace it with my own realm. I filled it with vibrant, WONDEROUS COLORS, and as a punishment for not thanking me, I decided to turn both my new subjects, and all the beings I could, which turned out to be all of them, into something a bit more, suitable to people that just wanted to be Jyggalag's boring old workhorses, 4-legged embodiments of their earlier forms.
Ineteresting to see that the Aedra and Daedra turned into "Alicorns", instead of light and shadow, or whatever all the collective Daedra would have been in in old, boring Nirn. Maybe "Ah" is just one of those sounds ya can never get rid of. But for some reason, everything started siftin' out. So we ended up with almost all the crazy sucked outta the land and in ta this "Discord" thing. and then all that magic my little ponies were supposed to play with inside the crazy old god-queens, and then they tried to put a schedule for the sun and the mood and the BLOODY SEASONS! In MY new realm! So I went an' laid down the law and I got all split-up and stoneified and suck in a little statue garden thinking to myself and watched my subjects freeze up the extra incarnation of crazy, THE SAME WAY THEY FROZE UP ME! And made their little buildings and planed everything in little patterns as order slowly crept back up, because I let the world keep some rules. It just made me SICK TO MY STONE STOMACH!
So I devised a clever little plan. I moved, not through space but through minds. I searched and searched and searched again through the minds of my subjects. Some were incredibly manic, flowing with wonder and curiosity, others demented, haunted by their pasts and drowning in their own sadness. I appeared to many ponies in dreams, I tried my best to inspire them to go big, I even inspired a pegasus to send a massive wave of rainbow magic over the land in an attempt to liven things up. But no head had quite enough space to hold even a piece of my great mind, none with the right kind of open-ness or emptiness of life to seek such an influence, until her. I was enraged when I discovered her family, they were rock farmers. ROCK FARMERS! 4 legged mortals without active magic were finding even more boring jobs than their ancestors. But I found her mind, I could sense her, she lacked purpose, she lacked interest, but she had such potential, there was so much magic and energy inside that was just tearing at the edges, so I gave her a piece of the Madness, both the demented mania and the manic dementia. Then showed her where to ind some friends to share it with, all I asked in return is that when the time came, she let me out.
(Recommend you set the background for "Dark" as the colored font can be hard to read, I used silver for Haskill because it's the closest I could get to gray, gray should be read in a monotone voice)
When all else fails, when they overtake the garrison
You must try anything, even that which pales in comparison
To the enemies' might you must not show fright
Least their assumptions of your worthiness be, WRONG
Hi everypony, I'm Pinkie Pie, I bet your wondering where that nice old cheese-offering god went, huh? Weeeell, you see he...had to take a walk, uh huh, he took a walk and we partied and now he's all good and nice but somewhere else.
Now now, Miss Pie, we both now that's a fib, ehhh. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Haskill, assistant to the madgod, Lord Sheogorath. Our lord has been away for quite awhile now. Well, my lord I suppose. Pinkie Pie here is more of an unusually faithful employee. You see, it all started when...
1001 C.E. (Celestial Era)...or 1?7,&Q4,3@6 S.T. (Sheogorath's Time)...or 3.0052401337x10^64 A.D. (If you wanted to go by the Gregorian Calender, that is)
Pinkie Pie was sad. That wasn't a normal state for her, what was even worse was that she had no idea why, she should have been perfectly happy. She and her friends had just beaten Discord. They were partying in Canterlot, not like that gala though, they were REALLY partying this time, there was pie and candy and music and ponies dancing to the music and even the princesses were having a good time! Twilight's brother was there and even took the occasion to propose to princess Cadence! Pinkie had made sure she hadn't forgotten anypony and the party was perfect in every way, but it just wasn't right. There was a break in the excitement and she slipped away.
Pinkie was walking through the palace gardens alone and looking around with an air of calm that would have made her unrecognizable to anypony who knew her. [I'm not THAT hyper. Yes, you are. Now can you please stop interrupting?Okie dokie lokie.] She found the statue (or stone-ified form) of Discord and sighed.
"Oh Discord, why did you have to be such a meanie?" she asked the statue, "You were hilarious, you were wacky, you had the power of chocolate rain. In a different reality, I could have called you friend." She would never tell her friends this, but she really wished they could've just made him less chaos-y instead of just making him into stone. She was lost in her thoughts about what could've been when a voice interrupted her. It sounded like it was in her head, but not quite.
"Pinkie Pie, is that you?"
She answered "Yep, this is Pinkie Pie Mr. Head-Voice"
"Oh, Pinkie Pie, well that's a wonderful name, isn't it? Pinkie Pie, reminds me of dear old Fimmian, you wouldn't happen to like sweet-rolls would you? Of course you would!"
Pinkie smiled, whoever this stranger was, he knew about sweet-rolls and you couldn't know sweet-rolls without loving them, all the bad thoughts in her mind disappeared, no one mean could taste a sweet-roll and stay mean, and this stranger definitely had had sweet-rolls. How else could he know about them?
"Sweet rolls?! I love sweet rolls! Do you have any Mr. almost-in-my-head-but-not-quite-voice?"
"No Pinkie, I don't, but I can get you some, just follow the thoughts, the wonderful, inspired thoughts."
"Okay!" she replied. And so Pinkie let her mind and body wander as she walked through the palace gardens. There were all kinds of statues in here, they were so interesting, she wondered if the ponies got parties when they did whatever inspired other ponies to make statues of them. Or if, she gasped, maybe her and her friends could get statues of themselves! Then she could throw a statues-of-us-being-made party, a statues-of-us-being-done party, and a statues-of-us-being-open-to-the-public party! Three parties, now they HAD to get statues, or at least one, she set about looking for a good empty spot in the castle gardens where the statue(s) should go.
As she was walking through the less used parts of the garden she noticed something, the grass wasn't quite right here, Pinkie examined it closely, it was split. One side of each blade was yellow and the other was blue, as if somepony went through and separated the blue from the yellow, but they let the blue get all dark and kept the yellow light. So Pinkie did what any rationally-minded being would do, she decided to eat some. Not a lot, just a small amount so she could know what it tasted like. She put her head towards the ground and bit. She instantly recoiled at the taste, "Ewwwww, it's like confetti", she spat and then looked down. She had pulled up a patch of normal looking grass, but underneath it was a wooden surface. She used her hoof to clear away the rest of the phony grass. It was a secret door! She put her mouth around the handle and pulled with all of her might. The door swung open.
The voice spoke yet again, not in her head this time, but from down the stairs under the door, "Good job Pinkie Pie, you did it! Now come here and let me have a look at you."
And so, Pinkie skipped down the stone steps to meet up with this new pony. Now, it's been said that skipping down steep stone steps is a bad idea, Pinkie Pie doesn't care. Nopony ever got anywhere in life by worrying about little things like safety and logic. Well they did, but they didn't get NEARLY as many friends as somepony who didn't. And that's the important thing, like how the logic-thinking part of her brain kept telling her that nopony was down here and that she should go back up the stairs right now. But she wouldn't, because she was Pinkie Pie, and Pinkie Pie was who she was, and nopony any this or any other side of Equestria could change that.
At last she reached the bottom of the long and dark staircase. For a moment there was an incredibly bright light, and then it dimmed. There were two doors side-by-side in front of her, one with a smiley face on it and one with a frowny face. Then she heard the weird voice again, but not in her head this time, she heard it from in front of her, it sounded like it was coming from behind those doors.
"Well, hello Pinkie Pie, how d'ya do? Scratch that, it's not particularly important, well, it is, but only to you, well perhaps not just you, but certainly not me. Where was I? Oh, yes, the doors, I need you to open these doors and set me free, and in return, I'll give you a special power to help you influence the minds a those around you, depending on which door ya choose to open."
Pinkie Pie immediately started to move towards the smiling door, but stopped. Just because it was influenced by her choice of door didn't mean it would be the power to make ponies smile. What if it only gave her influence over ponies that were already smiling? She wouldn't want to change the mind of a happy pony, and there was nothing better than turning a frown upside-down. She stepped back and though for a moment. 'The doors are only a few feet away from each other', she noted.
***
The Mad God stared at the doors in front of him. 'What was that pink one doing out there? No being had ever taken this long in the choice before, even his last champion had just thought for awhile and then said something about "saved games". Could she be-' his thoughts were stopped when the doorknobs began turning, both doorknobs. Both doors swung open an equally small amount, and then Pinkie walked through, dead center, and got her first look at the being who'd decided to guide her here.
He looked...odd, he certainly had the form of a pony, or at least the general shape of one, but he didn't look anything like anypony Pinkie Pie had seen before, except for maybe bearing a passing likeness to the princesses. he was an enormous white alicorn with a blonde mane and a pair of wings that shined and rippled and reminded Pinkie at once of an art studio, sugar-cube corner, an asylum, and a book she once read about a stallion named Sweeney Pie, who posed as a barber and turned ponies into cupcakes. There was something about his eyes as well, they reminded Pinkie of a snake.
"Ah, Ah HA HA HA HA ha ha haaaa, that's just BRILLIANT! Oh Pinkie Pie, I've never seen anyone handle the choice like that before, what inspired you to do that?"
"I don't know, umm, what do I call you since I can't call you Mr. Voice-in-my-head because you're not just a voice and you're not in my head anymore?"
He responded loudly, with strange sounds that burned in Pinkie's mind, who, even just by hearing them, could feel their power, she had no idea what they meant, but they felt like they were merely a capsule in which to hold thoughts too complex to be placed in mere mortal language. If the Royal Canterlot voice had a mean older sibling, this would be it.
"- You have no clue what I just said, do you?"
Pinkie had just, for the first time in her life, found something too scary to laugh at. She quietly shook her head, her eyes wide in fear.
"Ah, well, I am Lord Sheogorath, the Daedric Prince of Madness, and one of the few beings left in existence with a proper taste for cheese. Now, don't look so nervous Pinkie. You've done me a favor, and I promised you a reward. I'll have you know that I only horribly tortured and killed FOUR of the last nine beings who tried to do me a favor in order to get a reward, and you would've helped me anyway, right?"
She did, in fact cheer up, "Right, I'd do anything to make somepony smile! Hey, Mr. Sheogorath, if you're an alicorn, and a prince, does that mean you're Celestia and Luna's brother?"
"Celestia and Luna? I've never met them, you see, I've been inside this crypt for a VERY long time, so long, in fact, that I just CAN'T WAIT to get back to the surface, would you like to teleport with me?" He offered, it was really just a formality, it's not as if she would refuse to- she interrupted his thoughts again
"No thanks Sheo, I'll take the stairs" She said as she turned around.
"...Sheo?"
"Well duh, silly, I give everypony who's my friend a nickname. We're friends, right?"
"Umm, yes, of course we are, my little pony, see you on the surface!"
"You to, Sheo."
And on that note, his horn glowed, the spell charged, and the Madgod went to go have his first look in well over 1000 years at the realm he put so much time into sculpting with.
***
Applejack sat on a stool in the corner of the ballroom, coincidentally, the corner near the bar, and she had just happened to sit down in front of a place that seemed to be accumulating empty glasses at a rather alarming rate. Rainbow walked over to her friend.
"AJ, are you all right?"
"Aw shucks sugar, why wouldn't I be, ya'know, considering tha' all it took to make me give up on the thing I'm supposed to be the best at, the trait that y'all value me for above all else, was an image of us havin' a fight?" She responded, in a bitter, sarcastic tone.
"Oh, c'mon AJ, it's not that bad, we all messed up real bad yesterday, or...six days ago I guess, depending on whether or not we count Discord's crazy schedule of 10-minute days or not, anyway, getting drunk isn't going to solve anything."
She finished her drink in one more gulp and put the glass back down on the table, "One, I'm not so much of a lightweight that I could get drunk offa these watered-down city drinks no matter how hard I might care ta try, and two," she sighed, "never mind, I suppose you're right Rainbow."
"It's not like we don't know how you feel, you know, I abandoned all of you guys today, and what's my motto?"
"...Never leave a friend hangin'
"And what did I do today?"
"Left us five to dry on the clothes line like a newly-washed suit."
"I know, I'm supposed to be the element of loyalty, and I didn't even stick around long enough to even TRY to use the elements with you."
"Yeah, ah suppose Discord really got the better of all of us, didn't he?"
"Yeah...Hey, did you notice that guard captain propose to that princess, Ah-something Cadenza?"
"Yeah, it's a shame they left so quick, ah reckon Twilight 'n Rarity would've been interested to meet another princess."
"I wonder if Twilight even knows there are other princesses, I sure didn't."
"Hey, speakin' a' princesses, did ya'll notice something a bit off 'bout Celestia 'n Luna?"
"I've only met 'em a few times, but yeah, I see what you mean, it's like they lost some of their luster, or something, Maybe it has to do with discord."
Suddenly, the entire room let out a collective gasp, and everypony's eyes were on the two royal sisters, who had collapsed onto the ground in pain (elsewhere in the kingdom the same thing was happening to a certain Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, which a certain Changeling Queen decided to use to her advantage, but that's another story).
Twilight, who had just noticed Pinkie's absence and was about to start looking for her, ran back to her mentor's side.
"Princess Celestia! What's wrong?"
"I'm not sure Twilight", she said painfully, "I feel as though something has just stolen some of my magic." She turned to Luna and sent a message to her telepathically, "sister, do you know what this is?"
Luna responded the same way, with about as strength much as Celestia, "No, I do not, but it reminds me of when Princess Cadenza appeared, I think our power may be splitting to accommodate a fourth alicorn."
"I think you're right, but that's something we'll have to address later, we must first calm our subjects down and put their minds at ease."
"Indeed, sister." Celestia stood up, and looked at Twilight, who was still standing slack-jawed with her eyes widened in shock, and whispered in her ear, "My faithful student, I need you to lock the doors, and magically enhance my voice for me, okay?'
"But, why? Is something wrong with your magic?" She asked in a worried tone
"Just, please Twilight, please."
"Okay"
Twilight's horn glowed for a second with lavender light as the door closed and locked itself, then, the powerful voice of Celestia washed across the panicked room.
"My subjects, BE CALM!" The room instantly quieted down. 'Oh, so when I do it, they all freak out, but she can go into full on royal Canterlot voice mode and they just obey without question', Luna thought bitterly.
" Now then, it seems that a most wonderful and joyous event has occurred, it seems that Equestria has been graced with a new alicorn, me and my sister know not where this alicorn is, only that he is somewhere in this world, it is vital that he be found." She turned to her student, "Twilight, I know you and your friends have been through a lot, but I must entrust this job to you, for contact with a bearer of an element of harmony can give an alicorn true control over their own power, quickly, you must gather your friends and go, do not worry about direction, for your hearts will guide you to him." She finished her speech by touching her horn to Twilight's and casting a small spell, before anypony in the room truly understood what happened, the young unicorn had left with her five best friends on an epic quest, well, she had actually left with four of her five best friends to go find Pinkie Pie, and then embark on an epic quest.
