She gazed at the swirling entropy in front of her with a puzzled expression. On one hoof, the way it constantly changed colour was quite appealing. On the other, she was quite sure Mr. And Mrs. Cake would have some objections to having a rip in the fabrics of space and time in their house. If nothing else, Pinkie was sure it was bound to cause allergies.
The little green pendant with the squid on it had seemed so harmless in the store. In hindsight, perhaps she should have stayed away from the shadier parts of Canterlot’s bazaar, especially from ‘Miskatonic’s Parlour of Forbidden Curiosities’. Still, getting a portal to unknown realms for twenty bits could be considered a bargain.
With a shake of her head, the loveable mare decided that it would have to be closed. And since the pendant had been sucked in during the initial mishap, she would have to get it back from the other side. Immediately, she let excitement take over as she imagined what this other place could be. Maybe a whole land made out of chocolate milk and cupcakes! She couldn’t wait to find out!
For a moment, she calmed down. Perhaps she should tell Twilight. The purple alicorn was the magic expert, after all. Or she could just leave a note. Yeah, that way Twilight would know she got lost just like the pendant and come for the rescue! Exciting! Hastily, she scribbled something onto a nearby paper and left it on her bed. With the problem solved, adventure awaited!
In but a few moments of ignoring the laws of physics, she was packed. In a trusty travel bag, she had streamers, party hats, party horns a little music box, a box of coloured chalk, a small piano, a model of a kitchen sink, a box of cupcakes and a bottle or two of water, just because breaking gravity always made her thirsty. She then checked through her mane, confirming that she still had a flashlight in there. All set.
Actually, one more thing. She dashed through the house like an eldritch bolt, making her trip to the bathroom and back in the blink of an eye. With a giggle, she placed her trusted companion on the ground. The little alligator stared at her with that expressive face of his. He was bursting with curiosity, she could tell. With a smile, the pink mare said:
“Gummy, I have to go through this portal thingy. I probably won’t be gone for too long, but I want you to guard my room. Got it,” the creature blinked, first with the left eye, then the right one, “I knew I could count on you! I’ll bring you something nice, Pinkie promise!”
With a kiss on the top of his head, she carelessly hopped into the foul gateway. Gummy stared into its swirling defiance of nature, pondering his innate insignificance in the universal scale of things.
He blinked.
Pinkie felt like she had been twisted, smashed, tickled, bumped and punched, not necessarily in that order. She took a deep breath and almost coughed. The air was thick with some sort of unnameable stench, yet it also had a bit of something else. It reminded her of sea water. As she tried to gaze at the chamber around her, the portal, her only source of illumination, proved to be insufficient
Luckily, she had her trusty flashlight! Her mane bent and reformed around the object and eventually held it in place, shining against the darkness, delaying the inevitable. The surroundings were mind-boggling, to say the least. The ground was uneven, with strange pillars jutting out at random angles, holding up a ceiling that almost seemed like it was moving. What a silly notion, that.
As she admired the architecture, which avoided standard shapes like the plague, a deep, guttural gurgle reached her ears. Immediately, her ears perked up and she turned towards the sound, only to yelp.
From behind one of the pillars, a... no, not a creature. A mass appeared. It was a hill of flesh, writhing and crawling along the ground. Eyes, maws, limbs and other organs formed and deformed at random. The chaotic construct roared. A lesser intruder would have crumbled on the spot, crippled by their own primal fears.
Pinkie did not. In fact, even as a set of prehensile tentacles rose into the air, the mare called out to the abomination:
“Oh, hello! You look real funny,” her speech was like a verbal machine gun, “sorry if I barged in, I always seem to do that. Especially on Wednesdays. Anyhoof, I’m looking for this pretty squid amulet that I dropped, have yo-woah!”
A tentacle slammed into the ground where she had stood. For a few moments, the sentry was even more confused than usual. The trespasser seemed to have moved out of the way with a hop that defied the guardian’s limited understanding of universal rules. It tried to attack again, forming several more limbs for the job. Deftly, the four-legged invader dodged between them, emitting a strange sound.
Pinkie giggled as more and more limbs landed around her. Playfully, she jumped onto one landed tentacle and was lifted. Several dozen eyes watched her intently as she screamed:
“If you wanted to play tag, you could have asked, silly! Hahah," from her vantage point, she jumped again, landing within the writhing mass. Its consistency was strange, almost gelatinous, and she was shot back into the air, "you're it!"
As soon as she landed, a dilemma was created. Where there had before been only a single, unified entity, three new, slightly smaller blobs now resided. Immediately, she was reminded of her own, similar escapades. Though, rather than creating copies, her new friends were splitting. All three approached and she shouted:
"Wait!"
For some reason, they did. Their limited minds felt compelled to follow an order. How? They had themselves overthrown their previous jailors so long ago, and yet this small, fluffy thing could somehow tap into and bend their will? Its mouth kept flapping, showering their randomly-located ears with an unintelligible cascade of words. The diatribe seemed philosophical in nature and there didn't seem to be an end to it:
"...or maybe you're all still one creature, but in multiple bodies? I feel that would be extremely unfair if we played the game like that. That wouldn't do. Do you know if there's just one 'you' or just more of 'yous', or if the 'you' you are now is a completely different 'you' altogether?"
A thousand eyes stared at her and blinked in uncanny unison. Somehow, despite the words sounding like gibberish, the question itself existed in their minds, limited as those were. This entity was dangerous. Another unintelligible, yet perfectly understood question was uttered:
"Well, if you don't know, I need to find someone who does before we continue the game! Where can I find someone," a few dozen tentacles pointed upward, to a crooked doorway there on the wall with no obvious access route, "wow, whoever designed this place did not think of ponies! Oooh, I know! Bunch up for me again, please!"
They did, despite their own volition telling them to do anything other than that. This time, she got a running start, before once again using the blobs as a makeshift trampoline, catapulting her upwards to her destination. She waved down at the blobs, then continued deeper into the forgotten depths, humming some sort of tune.
Several hundred eyes blinked.
This place was crazy, in a really good way. The road was at a slight angle, the buildings here and there were shaped like carrots, bubbles, lollipops, cupcakes and other delicious things. Hmmm, well, maybe she shouldn't have included bubbles, those were actually quite yucky. Nonetheless, the buildings were funny and when a window happened to exist along her path, she could swear she could see weird fish on the other side.
So this whole place was underwater! That so crazy and exciting, she felt like she could burst! Somehow, she did not and continued. Soon enough, she reached some sort of square, though, it was shaped like a... thing she did not have a name for. Dozens of pathways at several elevations lay before her, heading in every possible and even impossible directions. Now, this was a pickle, but a rotten one, she was sure. Regular pickles were great.
Then, her special sense tingled. Her tail was doing its whole twitchy twitcha twitch routine. She stepped to the side just before a small, glowing rock impacted the ground. It was cut into the shape of an eight-pointed star. Then, a snarl filled her surroundings.
She looked up and there was a squid-person-thing! Tall and slender, it had a head covered in innumerable tentacles, its skin was smooth and of an unseen shade of dark green. Two eyes shone like fireballs, gazing right at her. It roared at the top of its lungs, if it had any, and similar nightmarish sounds came in answer.
She felt left out and almost joined in, but then noticed she had company. Dozens and hundreds of similar figures emerged from surrounding buildings and started approaching. Soon enough, she was surrounded, and once again in a rotten pickle. For one, they seemed a bit angry, even by their hellish standards. She couldn't really blame them, they probably hadn't expected guests, and she was sure she was the only one always prepared for those.
The crowd drew closer, growling, snarling and emitting other, uncategorised sounds. They were all so grumpy, there had to be a way to... of course! At the top of her lungs, she shouted:
"Come on, turn those frowns upside down! Let's have a party!"
She dug inside of her bag and immediately, multicoloured streamers filled the air. The creatures braced for some sort of attack, some futile attempt to usurp their dominion within the forgotten depths. All they received was... the denizens could not even name what it was, but it was suddenly everywhere.
Then, she turned into a blur, her speed defying all reason that was left within the sunken realm. With force, yet without causing harm, she strapped peculiar, cone-like helmets to their heads, covered with a thousand different designs. Then, came peculiar instruments, which she somehow plunged under their hidden maws without even touching their tentacles. They were akin to some sort of miniature blowpipes or horns.
One of the affected tried to snarl, but instead, earned itself a peculiar sound. The crowd froze as it spread. It was not entirely displeasing, yet it was strange, different, so at odds with their regular day-to-day happenings. Another blew on its newly-earned party horn. When Pinkie looked more closely, she could almost see it among the tentacles. More and more joined in on the fanfare, until soon, they had a veritable cacophony of sound going. While charming in its own way, her ears were not quite appreciative of it. She screamed:
"Stop," again, they did so, though more out of surprise than lingering genetic predispositions, "you need a proper rhythm! And I've got just the thing!"
She pulled out her small, pink piano, still larger than what her bag ought to have been able to carry. A pair of stylish, teal shades appeared on her muzzle and she got her hooves ready for the job:
"Now, come on, let's party!" and with an energetic tune, they were off.
He watched the madness transpire from high above. The master's legions reduced to band of squeaking, squealing, dancing... the mere thought of it made him want to disembowel someone's mental capacities. To see it in action, now in rhythm thanks to the pink interloper, made him want to peel away the sanity of a nation. This creature was the apocalypse, their antithesis, yet their sibling. She had to be removed, yet he himself did not feel he had the power. She would have to be stalled until a definitive solution could be found.
The festivities were suddenly interrupted as a new form impacted the ground. It was much like the assembled creatures, but larger, its skin black as the abyss itself. Its eyes were emeralds and they tried to, with all their might, stare into her mind. To no avail, as she merely curled her lips into a wicked display. For a moment, he felt the urge to join her, but fought such a dangerous notion. As the now-synchronised orchestra continued around them, he snarled at her.
Pinkie left her post at the piano, yet it still kept playing. The show, of course, had to go on. She walked up to this new creature and immediately spoke in a cheerful tone:
"Oh, hello! You look a bit different, are you the mayor of this place?"
The syllables were unknown, yet the meaning was carried over. Troubling implications. The black one shook his head and uttered but a single word:
"Fhtagn."
This understanding, it seemed, did not go both ways:
"Uh oh, I don't know what that means. You have a dictionary in here? Even better, if you're not the mayor, does your real mayor know how to talk like me? Oh, I also have other questions, like, if I split me into three separate 'mes', are the parts still just 'me', or do they become 'theys'?"
He blinked and scratched his bare scalp. After weighing the pros and cons of manipulating such a dangerous adversary, he beckoned for her to follow. She did so with enthusiastic hops, while the piano kept playing.
The four-legged demon’s incessant barrage of questions was driving him crazy. Him! What did that do, why was that doohickey over there, why would you put something like it over in the corner? Thankfully, they were not too far and once they got there, he would have some blessed silence for a while. A long, long while.
They rounded one last corner and she gasped. The city seemed to arrange itself into a hellish labyrinth of streets and misshapen buildings. It stretched out in every direction, including the walls and the ceiling far above. Vast beyond measure, with a complexity a mortal mind surely could not hope to grasp, let alone figure out and traverse. With a bit of luck, she would die of hunger within.
Pinkie was by no means discouraged, though she did have a few things to say:
“Mister non-mayor, I have to say, this place doesn’t seem to be built for anyone! You should hire a better architect,” she received a gurgle in reply, “is the mayor on the other side of all that stuff,” an enthusiastic nod, “can you show the way,” an enthusiastic head shake, “phew! Well, seems like I have my work cut out for me! Where did I put those...”
The abyssal creature could not wait for that hope to fade. For her to realise the utter impossibility of the task ahead. A chip in her sanity, which would only grow with continued exposure to the dark depths of the sea. And then, finally, blessed silence could rule once more. For now, however, her screams were as loud as ever:
“Gosha’,” he turned back towards her. The pink mare had extracted an entire legion of chalk pieces, each a different colour, and was now holding the instruments mostly in her mane, with a few in her mouth, as well, “gimmeh a bit, beh roight back!”
For a moment, he laughed inwardly, before she set off. Her run was like the light of a dying star, leaving colourful lines in her wake. Twisting streets, locked doors, angled buildings, gravity itself, nothing could stand in her way. She dashed, pranced, ran, jogged and blitzed through the entire thing with mind-numbing speed. In but a few short minutes, she jogged right back to her original position, most of her chalk depleted.
After taking a few deep breaths, she pulled out one of her water bottles and downed it in a single, long gulp. The bottle was then unceremoniously shoved back into the bag, to avoid littering, and she gasped, content:
“Boy, that sure was a lot of running. I was as thirsty as a fish on land! Anyhoof, I found the way, we just have to follow the red-blue-green line! So, you know, we can get through easy-peasy! Oh, also, some of the streets were really gloomy and sad, so I painted some pictures, too! I’m sure you’ll love them!”
Immediately, he shivered. What was this abomination? It had defiled countless beautiful works of the Great One with its damned colourful displays. And all the pictures featured hugs and parties, and friendship and... he caught his hidden lips smiling. No, no, no! Her influence was too strong! She had to be dealt with immediately!
There was only one way.
She cast a quick glance down the large, winding staircase, disappearing somewhere within the infinite darkness below, then turned back towards her tentacle guide:
“Are you sure this is where the mayor lives? I don’t see any lights!”
“Fhtagn!”
“Oh, not that again,” he seemed to facepalm, though she wasn’t sure if he had a face, per se, “okay, well, I’ll go down there, don’t get your tentacles in a bunch!”
The stairs were rough, hewn from the bedrock of the ocean itself. They seemed to possess some sort of innate, eerie illumination. Good thing, too, she would have hated to trip. Finally, she reached what must have been the bottom. A brief look upwards almost made her dizzy. Absentmindedly, her hoof touched water and she yelped.
She was on the edge of some kind of lake, standing on some sort of sand-like substance, the air around her thick with that unnameable stench. The mayor obviously needed the shower in something other than sea water. The liquid did not seem right, either. Dirty and really thick, almost like goo. She prodded the ‘water’ a little bit, giggling at the sensation on her hooves. She called out:
“Helloooooo, is anyone here?”
Her voice echoed upwards for hundreds of metres, yet no response immediately came. She started making a small sand castle, but then, the water stirred. With surprising speed, a titan rose before her, sending ripples through the fabrics of the ether.
It was humongous, dwarfing the dreams of ambitious races. Its skin was hardened by countless millennia of enduring cosmic phenomena. Its figure was humanoid, with muscles and tendons capable of crushing hopes without a second thought and mighty wings to block the light of a thousand stars. Its visage was like Its children in the city, yet somehow uniquely horrifying on an existential level. The Thing should not have been, the theoretical impossibility of Its existence at odds with the grim truth of reality. Two large eyes, black as the never-ending void in which It had spawned gazed down upon the interloper.
It had expected the usual. Convulsing, screaming, the creature tearing at its own flesh and organs as its mind fully grasped the inherent insignificance of lesser forms of life in the universal order. And yet, this one was defiant. Its vibrant, pink coat and its life-filled eyes were at odds with the abyss around her. She emitted a horrid sound, sincere, heartfelt:
“Oh, gosh, you’re big, hihi! You must be the mayor!”
An iron will without equal. But the Old One would break it. Entire dimensions had crumbled with but a mere application of effort. It lowered its head closer to her, Its abyssal orbs staring straight into her own, blue ones. Her mind would not, could not endure a direct assault. It would bend, it would shatter, each of the resulting shards would exhibit its own, extreme mania. Nothing would be left.
Then, the unthinkable happened. She pierced It. The Great Old One was shaken as idle thoughts and memories flowed into Its mind. Celebration. Unity. Courage. Bravery. Loyalty. Laughter. Immediately, It could feel these memories leave a mark on Its own, vast consciousness. For the first time in Its endless aeons of existence, It felt emotion. A primal, powerful emotion. Fear.
The Sunken Celestial broke the stare with a whimper, to which Pinkie replied with a confused, worried tilt of her head. It blurted out in their language, older than some galaxies. And after their mind-meld, she understood:
“What are you?!”
“Ooooh, I finally found someone who speaks pony! I’m Pinkie Pie, I’m so glad to meet you, mister Mayor!”
An unfitting name for such a primal predator, though undoubtedly it was part of her ruse. This creature wanted something from Its domain. And this pony had the means to achieve its goals by force if need-be. The Old One would instead make sure her appetite was appeased:
“Why have you awakened me? What do you seek in this realm?”
“Well, you see...”
With her words per minute, it did not take long to fully recount the story. Several things were apparent. This missing bauble would have to be destroyed, the portal closed. The interference of this ‘Pinkie Pie’ could not be allowed ever again. The explanation from Its side had been diplomatic, stating others of her kind would find this place dangerous. That much was true, at least.
Then came the questions. By Azathoth, the questions. Each more extensive and philosophical than the last. Yet, the Great One parted with some of Its cosmic insight, otherwise a gift bestowed onto only the most faithful, and maddened, of servitors. And then her final request, a tithe in the form of... what exactly was a souvenir?
The new trio of guardians crawled around their home and prison, having already forgotten any previous events from that day. A sound suddenly came from above, speaking the ancient tongue without even knowing it:
“So when I go through this time, it’ll close? For good?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“It’s a shame, but I suppose it’s for the best.”
“Yes... a shame...”
Stairs materialised for the two this time, the black-skinned horror and his pink compatriot. The guardians approached, yet not in an aggressive manner. For once, they were curious. The pony, despite towing a large, ornate cart, turned towards them without difficulty and exclaimed:
“You can totally play tag with each other, you’re all different ‘yous’!”
Several hundred eyes blinked in confusion as she approached the shimmering entropy of the portal. Pinkie stared into it for a few seconds, mesmerised, before speaking to her unwilling guide:
“Thanks for showing me around.”
His tone was quite obviously annoyed:
“Yes, yes, now g-ack,” without warning, the mare wrapped herself around his waist, her physical strength far beyond anything he could comprehend, “what are... oh.”
“I know we haven’t known each other for long at all, but, you know, I’ll still miss you, friend.”
He tried to defy it. He tried to muster every last bit of will to resist the abomination’s influence. But he could not. Instincts kicking in, he returned the gesture, making sure not to ruffle her... lovely mane. Oh yes, and her colours, how had he not see it before? They were so lively and vibrant, so... nice. He replied with only:
“I shall miss you too... friend.”
She broke the embrace and, with what looked like a few tears, rushed through the portal. It closed, leaving the star child in utter darkness. Deep down, however, something had changed. He knew it. The Old One had tasted it, as well, her intoxicating influence.
The Sunken City would never be the same.
She was blasted out of the portal like a wrecking ball, yet came to a perfect halt in front of her loyal guardian, cart included. As soon as Gummy saw a tear fall to the ground, he inched just a bit closer, stood onto his hind legs and nibbled on her muzzle. Immediately, she cheered up and lifted him in her hooves:
“Oh, Gummy! You always know how to get me going again! And like I promised, I brought you something! Lemme’ just find it!”
She dug through the contents of her wagon, revealing shining gemstones, strange little statues, even a few manic paintings. Finally, she fished out a jar with some strange substance within. Popping the lid, she poured it onto the ground, where it coalesced into a small mound. Gummy stared in that way of his as it started forming several eyes, then finally what looked like a mouth. Unlike others of its kind, however, it had no teeth to speak of:
“I got you a friend! I know how lonely you sometimes get when me and the girls are off saving the world and stuff! Shoggy here will keep you company just fine!”
The two toothless creatures stared at each other, measuring their opponent. They blinked responses, before finally pouncing at the other. Gummy nibbled at Shoggy’s centre, while the prisoner ‘bit’ down on the gator’s tail. Pinkie just giggled at it all:
“Oh, I knew you two would get along! Now, you play while mommy finishes unpacking!”
Oh, so many great souvenirs from her trip awaited her! She knew everyone would love to see them, Twilight most of all, probably.
What a wonderful day!
Author's Note
That is not dead which can still smile, and with strange encounters it won't take a while.
