Everyone knows the story about the alicorn sisters. The older sister, Celestia, who moves the sun each day, and the younger sibling, Luna, who moves the moon across the sky when the sun sinks below the horizon, allowing the two celestial bodies to flow through the eternal day and night cycles so that the world may live in imperfect balance. But what happens at the end of each day, when the sun goes beneath the sky to allow the moon to rise once again? Obviously, it doesn't just disappear; that would be stupid. Something as massive as the sun just phasing out of reality? No. But even the great Celestia can't keep it circling day AND night, even before Nightmare Moon was sent away. The Princess, whom the Equestrians refer to Celestia as since she is the only one, took on the movement of both celestial bodies, putting a tremendous strain on her already difficult task of moving the Sun. At the end of the night, the moon falls below the horizon, allowing the first cracks of the light of dawn to emerge. The moon is relatively small, so it can simply be placed on it's designated pedestal in Tartarus, the underworld, until it is needed at dusk. But the Sun is far, far more massive. Twenty seven million times more massive, in fact. It cannot simply be placed on a mere pedestal. No, that is where Khepri fills his role. When Celestia lowers the sun, Khepri is always there, and always has been, since the dawn of time.
Or as far as he can remember anyway. Khepri is pretty sure it's the dawn of time. Maybe.
Anyway, when Celestia releases the sun from her ethereal grip, even she doesn't know what happens to it. But Khepri catches it. He's been dealing with this star since forever. He knows how to catch it, how to hold it, how to caress it... Okay, he's never actually caressed the Sun before, but he does move it through the underworld so that it may light the mortal plane each day.
But DAMN that thing is heavy! It takes all night to move it into position. This exact thing is what Khepri realized several millennia ago, and boy did it blow his freaking mind. It was an enlightenment. Or what he assumed was one anyway. All he does is move the sun and make sure it doesn't fizzle out during the trip. Or more so hoping it doesn't. To be honest, he doesn't actually know what enlightenment even means, really. Hell, he likes to tell the demons and damned souls that he "protects the sun as it crosses the sky of the underworld" to make him look important. He isn't even all that special! However, it always amuses Khepri that they believe him. He also likes the kind words of encouragement and praise that he receives throughout his shift. It adds some spice to the repetitive day-to-day cycle that is his life. Wake up, keep the sun moving, eat, sleep, repeat. In fact, even after thousands of years of the same shick, he is only now getting bored of it, and that bugged him.
Khepri had a giggle at the pun he just made. He was a sucker for terrible puns, and being a giant scarab that moves the sun, there was a lot of potential. However, even the beetle's favorite pastime was not enough to quell the sorrow that is his new found realization of how dull his life is. New found in the last hundred or so years, that is, and every day since that first cynical thought, he wished, nay, depended on something exiting happening in his life. Something to finally break this endless cycle, even if just for a moment. Something new, something other than the same schedule, the same dinner, the same uplifting praises that he received from his neighbours!
Khepri jumped at the all too familiar ear-shattering buzz of his handless time-telling device. As annoying as it was, Khepri knew just how extremely valuable it was to not just him, but all who depended on him, as it somehow knew when the sun was coming, AND knew just how to wake him up to do his job. It's inner workings were mysterious as all he needed to do was connect a long black rope-like extremity to a specific hole in his cave wall, and it just... Worked. The scarab dared not open it to find out what sort of dark magic powered the strange device, but he lived long enough to 'never look a gift horse in the rectum' or whatever it is they say. He'd never look into a horse's rectum anyway. Ever since finding that... thing in his balled-up ding collection, he vowed never to touch fecal matter of any kind ever again. Besides, where it comes out is even nastier. Khepri shivered at the thought, but pushed aside said thoughts for when he was towing the fireball along as to stave off boredom.
Khepri approached the spot where the sun was emerging from the other side of the veil, and began his 'daily' routine. The beetle reached deep inside of his inner mind, as if looking for a set of really really lost car keys, except instead of lost keys he was reaching for the inner magic that all beings of the two planes of existence has. But it's still really far in. Like, REALLY far. Luckily, he has thousands of years of experience with locating his mana pool, and really only spent less than a second getting it. Channeling that inner magic out of his mind and along the dendrite connections to his claws, he spun a tiny ball of light. Focusing more and more, the ball grew. Small sparks of -- Well, he didn't know what it was, but it looked cool. -- Small sparks of coolness appeared within the orb, just as it always had as the mass grew still. Eventually, it stopped growing, and, like all the times before, he threw it upwards at the descending star. Khepri knew exactly what to expect. The same thing as the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and... The immortal bug decided not to sink himself into an eternal loop.
A metaphorical one, anyway. One endless loop was enough. He didn't think he could handle any more routine in his routine. It might just kill him.
Khepri saw a beam of light drop from fireball and walked over to the location it usually fell to. As it landed exactly where it had every time prior, it created another burn mark atop of other, preexisting burn marks on the hellstone. If this were to happen to a creature, it would really befuddle doctors. Picking the space rope (sorry) up in his claw, he sighed and started the long trek to the outer Farlands. A place where nothing dared go, not even the giant, fearless lava dragons. Nothing except for him, anyway.
"I lost the sun for a second," he said, adding a dramatic pause for an audience that he didn't care was there or not.
"But then it dawned on me!"
Bellowing a mighty guffaw (a wheezing giggle, more like), he walked toward his destination, watching the moon rise from it's resting place.
"Right on schedule."
Khepri sighed.
"Again."
Author's Note
Aight. Here be your first chappater. Ponies approaching.
Yes, I always make sure I don't misspell anything. Don't. Just don't.
EDIT: I had 333'000* more massive, but that's the sun to the earth. Sun to moon it's 27 million (I did the research and calculations myself because apparently no one put it on a shitty weebly page before) times more massive. FTFY. Don't want to offend astrophysicists. Their clearly less important cousins the astronomers? Don't care.
Kidding! nope.
Also tidied up random scraps of liquified feces lying around, crapping (heh) up my story.
Khepri began his daily trek across the underworld along the same path he followed every day since forever and ever. Gripping the strand of energy in his claws, he brought it to his horn and fastened it into a pretty little bow. Doing such things usually unusual for a male according to society made him feel important; he also found it amusing for a time. Once again pushing aside the negative thoughts that tried to take down his middle tower, Khepri adorned a cheerful attitude, and a matching smile to boot. Armed with his new bubbly attitude (and a gigantic friggin' space nuke), the big beetle followed his usual beaten-down path. If he remembered correctly -- No. He doesn't need to remember; he follows the same 12 hour-long path every day through the same 7 planes of ~~oblivion~~ the underworld, past all the horrifying monsters who try to kill him, but end up being little more than a minor annoyance, and right up to the end of the world. Of course, only the stupidest of creatures would ever try to kill a big bloody beetle dragging the sun itself behind him like a child's balloon.
Which, now that Khepri thought about it, isn't actually that bad of an analogy. In fact, despite being hard to drag along due to it's mind-boggling amount of inertia, it actually feels pretty light.
Khepri chuckled at his unintentional yet appreciable pun.
Now, all he really needs to do is follow the path, but going over the locations he needs to pass through to get to the outer Farlands makes it feel more like an adventure than a job. Somehow, this never gets old. But let's be honest, no one would complain about that in Khepri's position. Now, if he recalls correctly, his first destination is the Lost Woods.
While most who approach the mysterious forest decide to turn around and never enter the cursed woods, Khepri never feared the strange magics inside. It felt as if the forest wanted him to pass through, almost like it knew how important his job was. Which was creepy. Forests aren't capable of a higher consciousness. But Khepri didn't know how important his job was. He's just been doing this all his life because he's afraid of what might happen if he didn't do it. It IS the sun after all. For all he knew, if he left it alone, the sun would build up so much heat around it from being in the same position all the time that it would set Tartarus ablaze! Haven't these tortured souls suffered enough!? No. Khepri refused to let that happen. Wheither or not it was out of compassion or selfishness, he doubted anyone cared. Or maybe they didn't even know... Did they?
...No. If Khepri had such thoughts, it was inevitable that others had the same thoughts as him. If he learned anything from his long life, it's that-- he had been thinking for so long he already passed clean through the forest without a hitch. Huh. Being distracted for so long, the solar scarab hadn't even noticed what happened while he was traversing the Lost Woods. Based on his prior experience, however, he can vividly describe every oak, birch, and pine tree along his route. Even that extremely out of place golden maple tree that has it's trunk split in two and shaped like a heart.
That tree concerned him greatly. It always did, every time he passed it. It's not like it did anything bad, but it just had this sort of... Aura about it. Not necessarily a bad one, but not good either. Neutral. Khepri hated neutral. Pick a freakin' side! Sheesh. The scarab paused, catching himself before his thoughts got too out of hand.
...Claw.
Huffing at the thought of how arrogant he can be sometimes, he checked back to make sure the sun was still being towed behind him, As if the sweltering heat wasn't enough of a clue. Khepri smiled again, but this time with excited mischief as he began forming a phrase of pure evil within his mind.
"I thought I lost the Sun once, but then it d- no wait, I said that already..." He said. How clever.
His positive attitude now gone, Khepri trudged on, frustrated by the fact that he was incapable of making a decent and original pun. If you could say puns were decent in the first place, that is...
After an hour of walking, Khepri came across a pillar of carved stone beside the path, one of twelve that he had placed strategically along his route to let him keep track of his progress. He admired the expertly carved design that he had engraved himself; the way the lined danced around each other, and the expert placing of the carving itself, which allowed the curves and shapes of the vivid picture to be expressed as they interacted with the seemingly random jagged edges, rises, and valleys of the rock, each pillar showcasing it's own version of the masterpiece...
"2"
Apparently he had missed more than he thought in that forest. A gap in his memory concerned him a lot... Probably even more so than the creepy heart-shaped tree. Still, this was his two-hour mark, and the sun's momentum decides the pace that he travels at. Khepri was reminded of this as the flying hydrogen reactor tugged on the ethereal rope, urging him to continue. He has a schedule to keep! So onward he went.
Going to item two on his checklist, Khepri sighed in relief. The upcoming location, known to the inhabitants of the underworld as "World 2" for some reason, was a vast desert. Hot as... Well, he was already IN hell basically, so there's nothing to compare it to since it's already hot as it can metaphorically be. But as hot as it was, it had several large bodies of liquid relief.
No, not that kind of liquid relief! Get your mind out of the gutter you warped little... Actually, why was Khepri having such otherworldly thoughts? It is not unnatural for one to think such dirty things from time to time, especially considering he is a male no less... It is perfectly normal. What is NOT normal, is talking to people who aren't really there about things... That... Khepri lost his train of thought surprisingly fast. Perhaps his old age is finally catching up to him. Or not. No, probably not. Immortals don't get old. Physically. Mentally, it depends on the environment in which the deity ages.
So in Khepri's case, no, he is not as old as he suspected. That is a comforting thought. For a minute there, he thought he was going crazy! Ha! What a ridiculous thought that now that he thinks about it is not that much of a far-fetched idea.
Psychosis: a mental disorder characterized by symptoms, such as delusions or hallucinations, that indicate impaired contact with reality.
Delusions
Impaired contact with reality
Perhaps he was going crazy after all. Still, it's not like it mattered anyway. Even if he was, he had a job to do, and ye gods was he going to do it, psychotic or not. Although hopefully the latter.
Khepri was broken out of his thinking when he spied another one of his masterpiece pillars. Ever proud of the handiwork and unparalleled quality if the creation, he approached the tower of art.
"5"
"What...?"
How could this be? The pillar must be wrong. No! The pillars were never wrong! Khepri made sure of this himself! Had he really been determining his mental state for so long that he had missed the desert entirely? Mindlessly repeating the same turns surprised him not, but how could he have passed pillar 4? If 5 broke his concentration then why didn't 4? What about number 3? Something was undoubtedly wrong. There's no possible way there could be gaps in Khepri's mind. Not this big, and not twice in one day.
And then it hit him like a truck or timeline-restricted equivalent of a truck.
"Something to finally break this endless cycle, even if just for a moment."
Well, here is that something. Endless cycle successfully broken. Very funny, okay joke's over!
"10"
OKAY HAHAHA IT IS VERY FUNNY BUT IT'S TIME TO END THE JOKE!
"12"
Khepri had arrived at his destination. With a lack of recollection from any of the day's journey. A very scary lack of recollection. This was by far the most concerning part of his life. One could even say scariest. This had never ever happened before, so why now? Why did this even happen? What did he do? What if it's what he didn't do? These thoughts raced uncomfortably around in his mind as he, for the first time in his life, panicked. But at least the scariest point in his life is over. All he has to do is wait and let the strange force take the sun back to the surface world.
Khepri stared off into the endless void at the sheer drop that was the edge of the world. Strange grey particles floated around amidst the lightless void of the, uh... Void. The way they twirled and danced, rose and fell... It was surreal to anyone who watched. Even after seeing it every 24 hours for literally trillions and trillions of hours of his life, it was the one thing in it that always filled him with wonder and hope. Hope that the next day will bring something different... In fact, if Khepri ever truly died, this is where he would want to end up; a freed spirit able to float alongside the infinite dust. Sometimes, during the longer nights in the overworld, he would sit at the end of the world and just lose himself to it's peacefulness, never even noticing exactly when the strange force takes the sun above the ceiling.
That brought him back to reality. The magical grip should whisk the sun away any second now and solve all of his new and unwelcome problems!
Just let the strange force take the sun back. Just as it always has. Eeeeeevery day.
. . .
"Oh no."
Author's Note
I probably should mention that I do, in fact, have a plot line for this. Although it might not show well because the last bit of the chapter just crumbled up and violently threatened to fall apart.
I really hope it didn't.
EDIT: Reenforced the structural stability of the chapter as well as wiped away the inconsistencies and tyops (intentional) with grammar windex.
Gramdex? Grindex... Windmer... Wh...
WHATEVER.
