I had a little family issue...
Shining Armor scowled as he galloped down the Canterlot streets as fast as his legs could take him. It was the annoyed sort of scowl, the one an individual might form when they are forcefully prohibited from doing something that they desperately wanted to do by some other obligation. In this case, Shining Armor was running back to the Royal Guard Barracks, having been pulled away from his home and, more importantly, his little sister, by the late hour.
It was race day, meaning that his drill sergeant would be more than happy to give him a dozen extra laps for being late. And, to top it off, Shining Armor hadn’t been able to shower or groom himself that morning. Royal Guards, even low ranked grunts like him, were expected to be well groomed at all times, save obviously for during and immediately after.
His sister deciding to play “squid” with him last night was probably a bad idea; she’d stained him with more ink than a quick shower would ever clean out in a reasonable amount of time. Shining Armor sighed, knowing that the ink alone would get him extra laps as well.
Still, in order to preserve some sort of decency while out in public, he’d borrowed his father’s most fully-covering outfit. It was a little small on Shining Armor, being as muscular a stallion as he was, and it was still rather embarrassing, but at least it kept the ink from showing.
So, dashing along in his father’s clothes, Shining Armor burst into the barracks. His breath came heavily, still strained by the sore rib he’d gotten the other day from roughhousing too hard. Even as his lungs greedily took in the air with painful gasps, Shining Armor took stock of the main area of the building.
Empty.
Shining Armor cursed under his breath, ignoring how the potted plant nearby wilted slightly. Everypony was already outside, he knew, and that meant that he was officially tardy. And he’d had a perfect record this year, too.
Hanging his head in shame, Shining Armor trudged out to the training grounds out back, not even bothering to take his father’s clothes off. Spotting his commanding officer running the drills already, he slunk over to the unicorn as quietly as possible. Speaking softly, his voice barely over a whisper, Shining Armor said, “Private First Class, Shining Armor, reporting for training. Sir.”
Whatever it was about Shining Armor’s arrival, it caught the drill sergeant to jump in surprise, turn, gasp, and brandish his sword in his telekinetic grasp. “Cultist!”
Shining Armor blinked in surprise, having not expected the sword to the face. Then he blinked again, processing what his commander had just said.
Then he looked down at himself.
He looked back up, blushing with embarrassment (not that the sergeant could see it). In his haste, he’d forgotten that the clothes he’d borrowed from his father were his father’s ceremonial robes that he wore to prayer. Shining knew that his father would kill him - repeatedly - if he damaged the robes in any way.
He shook his head. “No, Sir, I borrowed them from my father so that I wouldn’t be indecent in public. I woke up late, and I hardly had time to shower.” With a quick motion, Shining Armor pushed back the hood of the robes and pulled off the mask.
The sergeant screamed in horror. It was a bloodcurdling scream, the kind a mortal throat can only make when its controlling mind was confronted with the horrors of the abyss.
The scream was loud enough to attract the attention of several of Shining Armor’s peers, who, upon seeing his exposed face, also shrieked in pure horror and revulsion.
“MAKE IT STOP!”
“THE HORROR!”
“IT BURNS!”
“The eyes... the eyes... the eyes....”
The sergeant, averting his own gaze, commanded, “Put that mask back on!”
Seemingly oblivious to the mild discomfort he was causing his peers, Shining Armor asked, “Sir? Isn’t face-concealing clothing against regulations?”
“Don’t care. PUT THE MASK ON!”
Shining Armor shrugged and lazily put the mask back on, carefully fitting it around his horn. Immediately, the screaming ponies fell silent, or nearly silent in the case of those whimpering in fear. “Sir, I know I have some ink on my face, but was it really that bad?”
“Ink? INK? What the buck is wrong with you, colt?! You have six, six, of the most Celestia accursed eyes I have ever seen!” the sergeant shouted. Shouting was about the only way he knew how to deal with things; a more sensible pony would have been whispering. “Six, in six they come. Fear, for they are the Hrm’ny Elm’n’ts.”
Shining Armor dutifully memorized the strange words that his sergeant unwillingly said without being consciously aware of it. His father would want to know, of course. Father always wanted to know those sorts of things. Then, pushing it aside for now, Shining Armor asked, “What’s wrong with having six eyes? Twah’lee thought I’d look good with them.”
For some reason, ponies always heard and spelled his sister’s name wrong. It was Twah’leghzt Sprr’k’lz, or Twah’lee for short, not “Twilight Sparkle” or “Twily.” That would just be silly.
As for the sergeant, try as he might, he couldn’t come up with any sort of valid retort to that statement, eventually settling on a simple “nothing” to end that particular part of the conversation. Hey, so long as Shining Armor kept that mask on-
“AHH!”
“THE HORROR!”
“MY EYES!”
“MAKE IT STOP!”
Ignoring the screams of those around him - his mother screamed like that all the time, clearly meaning that everything was fine - he finished shedding the rest of his father’s robe and folded it neatly. Then he gently set it aside for the time being.
Looking back up, he noticed that the rest of the soldiers were still screaming or crying or bleeding out of their eyes, ears, noses, mouths, and other spontaneously appearing orifices.
Shining Armor waited.
They kept screaming.
He waited some more.
They still kept screaming. One of them actually looked to be currently dead, Shining noted.
He waited some more. Growing bored, he sat down on the wilting, rapidly discoloring grass of the training field and adjusted his new tentacles to form a cushion for his head. If they were going to spend all day screaming, then obviously, he should try to get some more sleep. Twah’lee had kept him up all night with her chaotic antics.
As he was drifting off, a thought occurred to him. With a start, his blushing head jolted upwards. Embarrassed for his lack of tact, he disabled the “aura of madness” his little sister had given him the other day. It was a sweet gift, sure, but he realized that driving his peers insane might not have been the nicest of things to do. His father once told him that mortals apparently liked the whole “sanity” thing.
“Shining Armor?”
“Yes, sir?” The soldier replied, all twelve of his ears perking up.
“Are... are you going to kill me?”
Shining Armor cocked his head to the side. That was a rather odd question, no? It was a monday; everypony knew that you didn’t sacrifice a pony on a monday. Griffons, however...
“No, sir.”
“Am I going mad?”
“Not any more, sir. Sorry about that,” Shining Armor bashfully replied.
“Then, could you explain, soldier?”
A tentacle shyly rubbed the back of Shining Armor’s neck. “Certainly. That was a gift from my sister, sir.”
The sergeant looked like he was going to hurl. “And the tentacles? The extra body parts?”
Confused, Shining Armor asked, “Sir? I don’t understand what you mean.”
There was a subtle shift in the stallion’s tone; Shining assumed that his sergeant was already starting to suppress the memories, as mortals tended to do. “You can’t honestly expect me to believe that those are normal.”
“They aren’t?” Shining looked down at himself. Six legs, eight tentacles, five stingers, four abdominal mandibles, eighty five eyes.... yep, that was everything that should be there right now.
“Well, you did look like a normal stallion the last time I saw you...”
“Oh, that’s what you mean,” Shining Armor said, coming to a realization. Sparing only half a thought, he focused on the eldritch power coursing through his very being, a power greater than even Princess Celestia of the Sun. With a small pop and a soul-crushing blast of insanity, he returned to his “squishy pony” form, as Twah’lee called it. With only four white legs, two eyes, one mouth, one horn, and no tentacles, Shining Armor looked like a perfectly ordinary pony. “Better?”
“Much,” the sergeant replied. Then he blinked. “Hang on...” Rubbing his eye, the sergeant cleared away the drying tears of blood as he slowly became less and less aware of the fact that he had ever shed them. In fact, a lot seemed to be fading from his mind.
Then, as if noticing the time for the first time in a while, the sergeant bolted upright. “PRIVATE SHINING ARMOR, WHY EXACTLY ARE YOU LATE TO PHYSICAL TRAINING?”
“I was distracted by family issues, sir!” Shining Armor replied, saluting as he did. He wondered if the sergeant would ever comment on the nasty puce-colored ink on his face, but decided that as long as he was only stuck with a dozen extra laps for being late, then that wasn’t that big of a deal.
As soon as he was dismissed, he started galloping around the track. Truthfully, the exercise never really bothered him; how could it? He was an immortal being older than this entire universe, summoned to this world with his younger sister and bound to physical form by their “father,” Night Light, and his cult. Such things were trivial to the planet eater.
What wasn’t trivial was that running in this form always made his thoughts wander to that pink alicorn they’d tried to sacrifice to Twah’lee and him. For whatever reason, he hadn’t had it in him to devour her, and had instead taken to conversing with her. And, for likely the same reason, he found himself blushing and his heart - both physical and metaphysical - fluttering whenever he thought of her.
Shining Armor blushed. What an equine thing to do, he supposed, but not as equine as actually taking on a full mortal form, name, and personality just for her. He picked up the pace and ran just a little faster. Maybe there was something to this fleshy, three-dimensional world after all.
Author's Note
Just a silly little story based on the idea of an innocent lovecraftian horror. Yes, I think Celestia knows that they exist. No, I don't think she can do anything about them. No, I don't plan on making any sort of sequel, especially not one featuring Pnk'P!h, Aplj'k'k'k, Dsh'Rayhn'Bu, R'rt'x, or Fltczhu'r'ch'hy.
