Enigmatic Destiny

by Cosmic Enigma

Rating: everyone
Tags: Comedy, Random, Slice of Life, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Nightmare Moon, Original Character
Length: 3536

How is a powerful dark magic-using pony with god scrying powers more useless than anypony else? By being completely foolhardy and sarcastic is how.

"Cosmic Enigma, dark-caster, master scroll maker, predictor of destiny, the bearer of Understanding and the village philosopher, at your service!"
"Do we need a village philosopher?"
"Not really."

Cosmic is more mysterious than Pinkie, a bigger egghead than Twilight, more exotic than Spike and potentially more chaotic than Discord himself. With a cutie mark in scroll writing and a sixth sense that tells him of important events, as well as being able to control dark magic, his less than serious demeanor is the only thing keeping him level with, if not more useless than, anypony else.
***
The cover art was made with that pony maker everypony keeps talking about.

This story is on hiatus until further notice, and may be subject to complete rewrite

Published 2017-01-29 20:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2017-02-21 11:10:12 UTC

A declaration of foresight

Author's Note

Attention: This will be easier to read in Ultra Dark mode.
Formatting (in top right corner) --> Color --> Standard/Ultra Dark

A declaration of foresight

A black unicorn stallion sits at a table, old book in view, quill off to the side, for which the pony sub-consciously takes notes with. So used to studying is he that the act of taking notes has become a self-proclaimed background process. Good news for the stallion to which 2 massive lavender eyes were glued intently to himself, and only inches away, the very definition of distracting; so entranced were these eyes, you'd think the owner was expecting something very interesting to happen at a moment's notice.

But no, this violet unicorn in particular was just very annoying when it came to the quality of books.

In another attempt to make the eyes flinch, he enveloped the entire book with his magic before turning a page, as opposed to just the page itself, although unsuccessful, he did elicit a response.

"Can you please stop that?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." he deadpans.

"I know what you're trying to do."

"Is that so?"

"You're trying to annoy me."

"I'm trying to give your eyes a reason for being the size of dinner plates, but alas, there is not, nor will there ever be, a reason for eyes to be the size of dinner plates."

"I'm being vigilant."

"You're being sarcastically vigilant, it's that kind of look that says 'yes, I'm listening'."

"I'm just making sure you don't destroy an important archived document."

"And you think that would take place within the breadth of a second?"

Silence.

"You think that if you don't look closely enough, you might miss it?"

More silence.

"I think you just want to know what I'm doing." The colt starts to copy down a complicated scroll marking into his notebook.

"I'm not interested in the slightest."

"Fine, I'll tell you. I've been trying to learn all there is about scroll spells, and by using, what else, a scroll, I've found that any information I don't have resides solely here, and in a small rural town library a day away by train."

"Wait a minute," She sits down, "why didn't you just go to the town first instead of the royal archives?"

"My reasons are threefold: one, there is only one spell pattern here that I don't know yet..." The mare becomes interested in what this is and slowly leans forward to look.

"...two, I'm planning on living there even when I'm done, and three, destiny!" he slams both books before putting his quill, inkwell and notebook into his ever-present saddlebags. This allows the mare to realize what he just said.

"Destiny?"

"Yes, destiny," He stands up from his chair, "I have an actual sixth sense that tells me when something important is about to happen, and it tells me to do things, and when I do them, good things happen. Sometimes, it even tells me things that I shouldn't know, depending on how important the event is. Now if you don't mind, I have a train to catch."

While in leaving, the mare takes one last note of his features. He has black fur, with deep blue eyes. His mane and tail is a dark blue, with cyan highlights that contrast against his entire body. His cutie mark is, unsurprisingly, a scroll and quill.

The mare's attention goes back to the book, she slowly approaches it, but before she can look in it, a story book is placed on top of it.

"By the way, my sixth sense tells me you need to read this."

"There is no such thing as destiny."

"Sure, sure... see you in Ponyville." The mare casts a confused stare at the stallion, who then winks before leaving.

Looking to the storybook, she did realize one thing, she hadn't read that one yet, and who's to say that he hadn't found a way to predict the future, perhaps he actually did read all there is to know about scrolls, she wouldn't know, she really wasn't that into scroll spells anyways.

Later, much to this mare's displeasure, she had found something, and had her assistant take a note to her mentor, a princess by the name of Celestia. She had a response written quite quickly.

"See, I knew she would want to take immediate action."

*ahem* "My dearest, most faithful student Twilight. You know that I value your diligence and that I trust you completely. But you simply must stop reading those dusty old books!"

"What?"

Did you hear about the origin of Zebrafrica? It was said that the ponies cared so much about standing out, that when a fire started, they were unable to put it out because of poor city planning, in fact, it was so catastrophic that the entire continent turned into sand. Some towns and cities are like that, trying their best to stand out. This is not one of those towns, but if it was, the residents didn't need to do anything differently. It was next to the mysterious everfree forest, which housed an old castle of arbitrary importance. It was here that Twilight and her dragon assistant were now headed in the back of a royal cart, driven by pegasi.

"My dear Twilight, there is more to a young pony's life than studying, so I'm sending you to supervise the preparations for the Summer Sun Celebration in this year's location: Ponyville. And, I have an even more essential task for you to complete: make some friends!"

"But, but... no... I... this is no time to make friends."

"So all that freaking out had nothing to do with him?"

"Spike."

"It's that pony from a week ago, the one that said 'see you in Ponyville'."

"There is no such thing as destiny!"

"Twilight, this seems like a pretty big coincidence."

Twilight sighs, Spike was right, not only did she find something in that book, but now she was being assigned to Ponyville, the very town that stallion had told her about. Who was this perplexing pony?

"At least you're getting assigned to a library, doesn't that make you happy?"

"Actually, yes, if that odd pony could find something of interest there, then I can too."

A pinch of reminiscence

A stallion called Cosmic Enigma sits on an express train straight to the odd town of Ponyville. This leaves him with a three to four hour train ride with only his bag for company. In it contains several grimoires , some novels, the odd comic or two, and a side-pocket of trinkets and accessories. If there's anything he learned from his traveling magician parents, it's to pack light, and he didn't really have that many possessions in the first place.

He reaches into the side pocket and pulls out a drawing he made when he was but a foal. A drawing that reminds him of a reality he once knew, one that he no longer cares for, but it also reminds him of the existence of something that most others would find fictitious or irrelevant to anything important, but he knows better. He had met an honest-to-god... god.

A human ogled the snow-riddled ground outside, the twilight sky and snow-storm making it almost impossible to see any details. But even in his holiday house out there on high-ground, he was not exempt from the sound pollution of nearby cars, despite the storm. And despite the storm, said human caught sight of a figure walking outside, towards his front porch.

The confusing sight had him frozen in place, the idea of anyone outside in this weather was unthinkable. It was like a fish trying to swim in lava, that is to say, that said fish would have a rather piss-poor excuse for a brain. Breaking out of his momentary paralysis, opened the door and let said figure walk inside without a single word spoken.

Now taking the time to properly view this figure, he found it was a tall woman, looking not a day over 20. The most interesting feature about her was not the fact that the storm did not touch her immaculate hair, nor was it the goofy looking smile on her young face, but her clothes, had in fact, caught his attention.

She wasn't indecent, no, get your mind out of the gutter, in fact, quite the opposite. She wore a bright orange robe, the hood a darker shade. She had a belt like pattern of yellow; that same yellow made up the large eye-catching symbol on the front, a circle with four flares coming off of the top, bottom, left and right, with 12 triangles filling in the spaces. It was no doubt a sun.

Another interesting thing was what she was doing, which was precisely nothing, just looking at the man expectantly. To which he replied "You're welcome."

She laughed, "Sorry, thanks, I was just expecting 'what were you doing out there?' or something." she had a soft voice, but one that sounded as if it could be demanding if she wanted to, but something told him that that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

"I think the better question is, what are you doing in here? There are plenty of other houses."

"That is a better question, but I think the answer to which will have to be postponed."

"Uh, okay... well, in the meantime, why don't I get you something to drink?"

"Oh that won't be necessary, I'll only be here for a moment."

He wasn't sure about letting her back out in the snow, but this girl was already strange enough, so he asked another question, "What are you here for then?"

"Well, I'm going to offer you a choice."

"A choice?"

"Yes, it is a very important choice, but first, I think I should introduce myself."

"Alright, I'm..."

"Not you, I know who you are."

"Really? Then who are you?"

"I..." She thoroughly applies a dramatic pose, "...am a god."

...

...

"A god?"

Her pose quickly fades, "Yes, a god, the Seer of Light to be precise."

This girl definitely seemed crazy, but also seemed pretty tame, so he decided to humor her for the time-being.

"So, Seer, what is it that you do?"

"This is not going to be our topic of discussion, but as for what I can do, simple, I can find the best course of action for any situation, and value other courses of action, based on likely-hood and size of success."

"...That's it? Seems pretty tame."

"It's a lot more powerful than you think, especially when combined with the powers of my cohorts, oh, also, I can fly." She succeeds in demonstrating this by levitating as high as the roof will let her, and despite only just entering, proves that there is no harness or wires.

Well, she can fly, that's pretty much all there is to say on the matter. Although most people would either faint, or do a flippin' pirouette off the handle, all this gentleman could do, was judge how likely everything else she had been saying could be true. As he asked another question, the Seer didn't seem to care enough about this to push anything.

"So, you're some sort of a prophet goddess, and you want to give me a choice? Sorry, a choice?"

"Yes," reality decides to reassert itself and push the Seer back to earth, "this is no ordinary choice."

"So you've said, but does that mean it's not like 'chicken or fish on an airplane'? Or is this a choice that has to do with saving the world?"

"Well, it's certainly not the latter, but this choice will change the way you view the world."

"Will I be able to change my mind?"

"No, but calm down, you don't even know what it is yet."

"Well, tell me then, I'd like to go back to my 'sitting at the window' time."

She smiles at this. "What if I told you that I could make your life much more interesting?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if I told you that there are countless worlds out there, far more interesting than the life you clearly find boring? What if I told you, I could take you to one? And what if I told you that you are guaranteed to love it?"

"Color me intrigued, what's this world like?"

"I can't tell you that, but here's the choice, you either stay here, your memory of ever seeing me wiped clean, or, you could change form and go to a world of magic and wonder, never to see this world ever again."

"Wow, that's a big decision."

He thought about it for a moment, she was right, his life was boring, his loved ones, either gone or they don't really know him that well. It seemed to be a pretty good deal, and being as anti-climatic as he is, he simply said yes.

"I must say, I didn't expect such a rapid response, although to be fair, we didn't really have much time anyways." The Goddess of Light was closing curtains and turning on the light in the bedroom, ready to start the process. Meanwhile, the only thing that was going through the man's head was how quickly everything was going. First there was a mystery woman in yellow robes, then he was laying on his bed, ready to be sent to another world.

Life is strange.

But he didn't have much time to think about this, the Seer was once again holding the wands she had pulled from nowhere earlier. Attempting to stay calm and not crazy, he pondered the nature of such wands, as they looked like gigantic porcupine quills, it turns out, they were in fact the 'Quills of Echidna', close enough.

"Ready?"

No, "Yes."

"Okay, just don't fidget too much." Her calm words reassured him, but his heartbeat wouldn't listen.

The Seer of Light closed her eyes in concentration and slowly wafted the Quills in his direction, a gentle black void drifting towards him. He could feel the gentle tendrils wrapping around his limbs, seeping through his pores, chills coursing through his body. His senses slowly dulled, replaced by darkness, but a strange sort of comfort came with it. He suddenly saw flashes of eldritch monsters, some bigger, some more terrifying.

His senses slowly started coming back, an assault of chaotic stimuli flying past him. The assault continued to grow stronger and stronger until it become to much for him, and he blacked out.

Just as suddenly as his memory stops short, Cosmic is thrown out of his stupor as he hears the train pulling up at his stop. He puts back his childhood drawing of a sun and exits into the mystery town that he will now call home, his destiny sense informs him of many important events and artifacts, a particularly important one happening in about a week's time.

Author's Note

Human: The characters are humans, or a human character is involved that is not because of a crossover or Equestria Girls.

It is because of this tag description that I have decided to not add the "human" tag. This is a flashback chapter, and the only one with the mention of humans. Since Cosmic no longer identifies as a human, and his humanity is now non-existent, (and the only memory he cares to remember is this one), this isn't exactly a fic that technically contains humans in it.

The same goes to the crossover tag, this is not a Homestuck fan-fiction and I don't expect you to know anything about it, this is a homage to it's brilliance, and also a kinda-sorta explanation for Cosmic's weird destiny powers.

Despite all this, I'm putting it in the HiE group.

P.S. A digital cookie to whoever can identify the name of this goddess.

A tablespoon of confusion

Author's Note

UGH! I'm a horrible writer, too many line breaks, odd coloring style, fast pace, maybe some missing information. Can anypony please tell me how I can fix this, I need to know!

Also, from now on, it's kinda a slice of life sort of deal, so feel free to suggest any possible situations to put the characters in. (Please!)

Also, remember, read this in Ultra Dark mode!

A tablespoon of confusion

Funny thing about chaos theory, even the smallest change can have consequences...

"The Elements!"

This is called the Butterfly Effect...

"TWILIGHT!!!"

I admit something might've changed, maybe I wasn't supposed to be here, I don't know, I'm just monologueing here.

"Oh, Twilight, thank Celestia you're alright!"

Or maybe it's the nature of Paradox Space itself, things change to accommodate me, after all...

Paradox Space has a strange sense of humor.

"She went up there!"

All the six ponies could do, after spending a while trying to find their way around the old abandoned castle, is stare from the doorway. The sight? Nightmare moon on the floor, in tears, with a suspiciously familiar charcoal black stallion at her side, comforting her. No, you heard me right, a mysterious stranger had put a malevolent spirit to tears, and started comforting her. Even Pinkamena Diane Pie herself is dumbstruck.

"I don't blame you, 1000 years would've done this to anypony."

"That doesn't matter, I'm a horrible pony!"

After about an hour, the Mane Six are still staring, Celestia was released, after which she started staring while Nightmare Moon apologized profusely, then, in an anti-climatic finish...

"I don't even deserve to exist!" Nightmare Moon then throws off her armor quickly, and absconds quickly in gas form into said armor, leaving a blue filly behind.

Instead of asking questions, the seven ponies look towards a smiling Cosmic, who is occupied by trying to wake up the sleeping filly, he looks up. "What?"

Twilight is the first to speak up, "How did you... what did you... I mean......... what?"

"Wasn't it obvious? I thought that's what the whole rush was about."

...

"Were you looking for the Elements... to banish her?"

...

"Don't worry, ponies have a long history of misunderstandings... which I'm sure this is."

Celestia pulls herself together, "I think my little ponies are just confused as to how you figured out she... could change, at least through words alone."

"I already knew, I just pointed out a couple things and she just broke down."

"But what did y'all say?!"

"Um, maybe we should talk about this later, my sixth sense tells me there is something else important to cover."

"That's right, Twilight, did you find any similarities between your new friends and the Elements?"

"Uhhh... OH! Of course! They represent the seven Elements of Harmony!"

Ugh... That was an odd shiver... Cosmic thought, probably just my destiny sense acting up again.

"Applejack, who reassured me when I was in doubt, represents the spirit of... Honesty."

"Fluttershy, who tamed the manticore with her compassion, represents the spirit of... Kindness."

"Pinkie Pie, who banished fear by giggling in the face of danger, represents the spirit of... Laughter."

"Rarity, who calmed a sorrowful serpent with a meaningful gift, represents the spirit of... Generosity."

"Rainbow Dash, who could not abandon her friends for her own hearts desire, represents the spirit of... Loyalty."

"And Cosmic Enigma," There's that shiver again, "who thought about Nightmare Moon when nopony else cared, represents the spirit of... Understanding."

Celestia used her magic to break apart the rock-like Elements to let out crystals, which circled around their respective spirits in their strange glow.

"And when these Elements are ignited by the spark of friendship, it creates the Seventh Element, the Element of Magic!"

Although Cosmic wasn't put through the trials the others were put through, he did have a good long nap behind Nightmare's throne after looking for the old library to scavenge old books from. The others still felt the same sort of bond with him, Twilight, from their talk in the archives, and the others from his Pinkie 'Welcome to Ponyville' party.

Despite this, he was still on most of their minds, particularly during Pinkie's next party, like Luna while she trying to take her mind off of how quickly everpony had accepted her.

"Sister, who was that stallion?"

"I honestly don't know. When I was sure the other Elements were taken cared of while planning on sending Twilight to Ponyville, I got an odd letter. It told me to not worry about Understanding and that everything would fall into place as expected. It had an image of a sun on it."

"Like your Cutie Mark?"

"No, it looked different somehow, but I still felt as if I had seen it somewhere before, and whoever wrote it had a colorful vernacular, and uses metaphors way too much.

In the end, the seven friends were sure going to have lots of adventures together, but we don't care about that, we care about what happens outside of saving the world... wait... what do you mean you care? Too bad! This is about their ordinary non-catastrophic issues of everyday life!

Ugh, fine, you can have a couple of friendship reports thrown in.