This suit is... surprisingly comfortable
It was the sunlight making its way through a gap in the curtains that woke me up. My eyes opening slowly as I hated the sun and took stock of the fact I woke up in my living room.
Everything seemed normal at first glance, right down to the dust on the glass coffee table.
Sitting upright I noticed I was wearing pants with one purple leg and one red. This was particularly odd because I knew for certain I had no clothes of either colour in my house.
Rubbing my eyes, I mumbled under my breath, "I need coffee," before a puff of purplish smoke appeared with a poof sound and my favourite coffee mug appeared on the coffee table, with the faintest traces of steam wafting up from it.
As I cautiously reached for the mug, I noticed a purple sleeve on my arm and decided to finally actually take a look at what I was wearing. I stood and looked down, I took in the strange suit with unusual swirls and lines that was vertically split between red and purple, a fairly loose-fitting belt with a silver buckle holding a blade near my left hip and an older-style of neat, white cravat tied around my neck.
And yet, it was all very comfortable. Nothing tight or restrictive, nothing stiff or hard. I honestly don't think I've ever had even a set of pyjamas as comfortable as these clothes.
"Where in the blazes did theee..." I trailed off as I heard what I was saying come out in a thick Scottish...ish... accent.
'I need a mirror,' I thought when in another puff of purplish smoke a full length mirror appeared beside me.
And I immediately started to panic.
I fell backwards into my glass coffee table, smashing it instantly, and given the age of it and the sentimental value of it being around for as long as I could remember, I snapped out of my panic over becoming a Daedric Prince and started panicking over it, and started muttering, "It can't be broken," over and over, when it too was consumed in smoke, suddenly intact. The glass actually looked new and the old metal legs looked freshly polished!
With the combined shocks somehow balancing each other out, I was able to take a few minutes and gather myself enough to properly examine myself in the mirror that had appeared earlier.
The first thing I noticed was that my hair was now white, when it used to be a dark coppery red.
The second was that it was longer than I had ever let it be before.
Then I noticed how much I'd been aged. Overnight, I went from early twenties to forty-something, at LEAST.
Finally, I came to the beard.
...
It's a good beard. Perfect length to stroke slowly and make people feel uncomfortable around you.
Then the realisation hit me on who I appear to be and that everything that was happening, the coffee, the mirror and even the coffee table fixing itself, must have been because of my doing through magic, or power, or... whatever you'd call what Sheogorath does.
And then, of course, being the game nerd I am, I had to drop some quotes while watching my reflection.
"You know, I was there for that whole sordid affair. Marvellous time! Butterflies, blood, a fox, a severed head. Oh-ho-ho! And the cheese! To die for."
I probably would have gone on with more, but there came a knocking at my front door. Peeking out my window I could hardly believe what I saw.
Ponies!
Ponies everywhere, and a group of little ones approaching my doorstep.
Of course, being a Brony myself, I immediately recognised the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Pipsqueak, Rumble, Snips, Snails and Dinky Doo... And had to take a few minutes to cope with the fact I was apparently in Equestria as well.
That said, I felt some modicum of relief when there came a knocking on my door, snapping me back to reality. Whichever one this happened to be.
Of course, being a bigger geek than I was a Brony, so of course I opened the door with another quote.
"Do you mind? I'm busy doing the Fish-stick. It's a very delicate state of mind."
And with that, they all ran away screaming, except for Rumble and Pip, who both just stared at me.
"What?, were you expecting some tentacle monstrosity or something? Because that's more Hermaeus Mora's thing."
Pipsqueak spoke up first. "Hi! We were just wondering who you were since your house appeared out of nowhere on the empty lot! My name's Pipsqueak, and this is rumble," he said, gesturing to his friend, who seemed a bit stunned considering all he could manage was a nod an a half-hearted wave.
"I know who the two of you are. So tell me, how can I help you?"
"We were just wondering who you were. And if you don't mind us asking, what are you?"
As I racked my brain, I realised I couldn't remember my own name, but given how direct his query as, I felt compelled to answer with, "The name's Sheogorath, and as to the what, I suppose you could say I'm a God of Madness! Or more accurately, THE God of Madness. Although, that's not entirely accurate either. I'm actually the Daedric Prince of Madness."
Of course, I never expected them to both exclaim, "Neat!", but I know I should have.
After a brief moment of awkward silence, I asked, "If you're not too busy, would you care to come in for some snacks? You can tell me about your little town," and as I finished the sentence, my coffee table was consumed in smoke and on it had appeared silver trays filled with an assortment of biscuits, including Oreos and two cups of piping hot tea in plain mugs.
Their eyes widened a little, but I think that was from the magic, and they smiled as they came in and sat down, immediately chewing through a few.
"So, tell me," I started as I went over to the TV and started changing some wires, "What brought you and your little gang of Junior Heroes to my door this mornin'?"
Rumble, having his interest in the snacks and drink fall to curiosity over what I was doing answered. "I don't know about the others, but I was just tagging along with the group."
"And you, Pip?"
Quickly swallowing his mouthful, he said, "My mum told me to be polite and introduce myself to the new pony in town. I bet she'll be surprised to learn you're not a pony at all!"
"Ah."
As I continued screwing around with the wires behind my TV, they must have started checking out my book-case, because I heard Rumble say, "You have a lot of games here, don't you?"
Without looking, I answered, "Absolutely. There's a few there that are almost as old as I am."
A brief pause as I processed what I had said.
"Well, not as old as I am as Sheogorath, but as old as the me that lives in this house. Does that make sense?"
I should have expected them to both say, "No," in perfect unison.
And with that I finished setting up the good old Nintendo 64, and started up Mario Kart, plugging in three controllers, quickly garnering their attentions as I offered them a controller each.
Of course, before we could actually start a game, there came another knock at the door.
With a sigh, I got up saying, "You guys pick the track and your characters, while I see who's at the door. Don't start without me."
Opening the door, I was met with a... slightly irritated Twilight Sparkle and surprisingly calm Thunderlane.
Before either of them could say anything, I opened the door fully, making the two colts visible, while saying, "Rumble, your brother's here."
Looking away from the TV, Rumble waved and then turned back almost immediately, clearly not realising that he never told me about his brother, and I saw most of the tension in Thunderlane's muscles relax.
"Care to join us? We're about to start up a racing game," I offered as a fourth controller, which I'd never had before appeared near the system, to which the older pegasus, gave a small smile and gave his thanks for keeping his little brother out of trouble as he trotted in and set himself up on the lounge, above the two younger colts.
Looking back at my door, I asked, "So how can I help you, Miss Sparkle?", clearly catching her by surprise with the fact that I apparently knew her name, given the way she was stuttering in confusion.
This was of course an easy fix, because when I booped her on the nose, the purple unicorn went cross-eyed before glaring at me as I pulled my hand away.
"How do you know who I am?" She asked, with great suspicion.
I threw her a non-committal shrug. "Cosmic powers or some-such. Now, what do you want?"
"I want you to tell me what you are and what you're doing here," she answered, pointing with her hoof, presumably in what was meant to be an accusatory manner.
"No."
The hoof came down slowly. "What?"
"Well, why on earth would I tell you anything when you asked so impolitely?"
"Because you and your... residence appeared out of nowhere?!"
"Well, that's no excuse for bad manners, now is it?"
With that she took a breath and calmed down a little. "Would you please tell me who and what you are and what you're doing here?"
"Much better. Now, you can call me Sheogorath, and I'm a Daedric Prince. As for what I'm doing, I'm just getting settled in."
"And can you tell me how you got here?"
"Nope."
And the calmness started fading from her face. "Why can't you?"
Keeping myself calm, I answered, "Because I've no bloody idea myself."
And then her eye started twitching. "Then can you at least tell me what you're planning on doing with Pipsqueak, Rumble and Thunderlane?"
"Well, I was planning on enjoying a few snacks an-," I managed before getting cut off by a beam of purple magic was blasted into the centre of my chest, but to me only felt like a mild warmth.
Looking down at myself, I could quite clearly see she hadn't even so much as disturbed my suit, much less done anything to even remotely hurt me, despite the cloud of smoke obscuring me from her vision.
As Twilight stood there, both enraged and stunned at my indifference to her attack, she started spouting something about how I was some 'pony eating monster' and that she would see me 'banished to Tartarus', only to stop and start gaping once the smoke cleared, revealing that all she'd achieved was to piss me off.
I let bit of my geek show again and shouted, "How rude! Can't even be bothered to allow a mad god to entertain a few guests without attempting to assault him! Harrumph! I say I'm quite done with you. I bid you good day now, so Leave Me Be!"
With that, Twilight seemed to visibly stiffen and started stepping back away from my door as I shut it, barely noticing the various startled ponies who'd ben going about their day before the incident started.
Turning and heading for the lounge, I grabbed an ANZAC biscuit and sat next to Thunderlane, picking up my own controller, saying, "We'd best skip ahead to Rainbow Road, because I think I'll be getting a visit sometime soon from the Princess."
He looked at me with some confusion. "Why do you think that?"
"Because I believe I just scared the living daylights out of Twilight Sparkle, and she's more than likely written to her by now."
Of course, we didn't even make it to Rainbow Road before there came yet another knocking at the door.
With a sigh, I got up again.
"Visitors all day today."
So... it's more literal than I expected
I opened my door to be greeted NOT by the princesses I was expecting, but by a couple of younger mares, with similar coats of a pale blue-ish purple, one with a light green mane, the other with a two-tone blue and white, and cutie marks of fireflies and a shooting star.
"Can I help you?"
After a brief glance at each other, Cloudchaser answered, "We're looking for our colt-friend." "And his brother," Flitter added.
After taking a few seconds to stare at them in awkward silence, I stepped aside and gestured for them to come inside, which they did after only the briefest moment of hesitation, Cloudchaser hoping through the door with a small smile upon seeing the unused controller beside Thunderlane, and Flitter with a faint sigh at her sister, both having a cup of their favourite hot drink appearing beside them as they sat down.
After watching them for a few seconds, I said, "Excuse me a second," and started down my hallway, intending to get my movies folder from my bedroom.
I barely made it three steps before I was consumed by a thick fog, startling me into stopping.
Less than a second later, he stepped out of the fog. Sheogorath himself.
"Greetings and salutations! I hope you're a fan of mine, otherwise, you'll need me to introduce yourself to us!" he exclaimed with open arms.
Stunned, I was barely able to say, "I know who you are."
"Great! it's always such fun when a mortal knows who they're dealing with. Although," he paused to stroke his beard. "I supposed it would be more accurate to call you a FORMER mortal, wouldn't it?"
My mind raced a thousand kilometres an hour. "I'm sorry, what?"
He looked me dead in the eye, and told me with a terrifyingly serious voice, "It's not like I made you take on such an appearance, gave you incomprehensible powers and a glorious beard for no reason, now is it?"
I started moving my mouth, but no words came out, and he continued, turning away from me, and gesticulating wildly as he once more took on his typical, joking demeanour. "I don't know who you were before, and frankly, I don't care either. For all intent and purposes, that person is now dead. Deceased! Shuffled from the mortal coil into... who cares where?"
Pivoting on the spot, he pointed at me. "YOU! You are now Sheogorath. Me. The Mad God. At least, of a sort."
Coming to my senses, I said, "I'm still not quite following you," to which his response was to drop a quote from Elder Scrolls V.
"It's a family title. Gets passed down from me to myself every few thousand years."
"That honestly makes more sense than it has any right or reason to," I felt my mouth say as I waited for my brain to catch up and properly process this information. A few seconds later it finished rebooting.
"So what happens now?"
He stroked our glorious beard in a contemplative manner. "Now? Now you return to whichever little reality it is you ended up in. It's yours. And by 'yours', I mean 'mine', by which I mean 'ours'."
Sitting on a chair... throne... toilet... amalgam, he continued, "The Shivering Isles are mine. Mine ALONE. But I recently felt compelled to expand my influence. But I can't do so myself and keep my home the way I like it at the same time. Thus, you. Wherever it is you ended up, that's your place of influence. The range and limitations of your influence and power, however, will be far more amusing for me to see you discover for yourself. Your own little Plain of Oblivion, outside of the Plains of Oblivion!"
And with one final sinister grin, he said, "Have fun now," before it all faded away.
The fog around me lifted soon after, and I was once again in my hallway. After spending a few moments readjusting, I headed into my bedroom, like I had originally intended and grabbed my folder full of DVDs, ignored the Wabbajack that was in my bed, tucked in like a child, and returned to the small, colourful equines playing video-games in my living room.
With Cloudchaser having laid claim to the fourth controller, I sat down beside Flitter, content to simply sit back and watch the others play the insane kart-racer, and asked, "So, Flitter, was it?"
A confused and slightly suspicious frown crossed her features and she nodded slowly.
"Would you be so kind as to tell me a bit about this here town I seem to have found myself in?"
The frown eased and she started telling me of some of the happenings around Ponyville, which I can safely estimate as being in Season One of the show, because the latest thing she described was about a certain 'Great and Powerful' show-pony that was very recently chased out of town after her show lead to the town imbeciles bringing a giant starry bear into town.
Of course, the pleasantries couldn't last forever. As soons she finished recounting recent events, there was a knocking at the front door.
Walking over, I willed a couple of doughnuts to appear in my hand and opened it up to see the Princesses and a squad of guards.
Seeing them, I couldn't help but grin, before channeling my inner Youtube fan and exclaiming at the top of my voice, "DING, DING, DING, DING, DING! TOP OF MORINING!", clearly taking all of them by surprise.
I stood there, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, while I waited for their brains to register my greeting, but as soon as they did, Celestia narrowed her eyes and, in a serious tone, asked, "Discord?"
Despite knowing exactly what she was referring to, I responded, "Entropy."
To this, Luna cocked her head sideways and asked, "Your name is Entropy?"
"No."
As the best princess's face adorably scrunched up in confusion, Celestia's patience ran thin and she stepped forward, almost shouting, "Enough games, Discord!"
Straightening up, I calmly looked at her and said, "I don't know who this 'Discord' is, but she sounds like a classy lady," stroking my beard all the while, the doughnut from that hand floating an inch away, until I quickly snatched it back.
Finally losing her temper, Celestia used her magic to summon a weapon, a Morning Star of all things, and swung with all the force she muster, and upon contact wih my face, the spiked head exploded into blinding light and intense, concentrated heat.
She let the slightest smile show as I let out a scream.
Not that it hurt in the slightest.
No, my scream was because one of the spikes and somehow gone up my nostril, and now I needed to sneeze, but couldn't with the piece of metal attempting to compromise my sinuses one booger at a time.
Grabbing Celestia's weapon, I shoved it, and her away from me, sending her sprawling on her back and freeing my face to sneeze, and when I did a Pine Marten, fully kitted out in Police SWAT Gear appeared in a cloud of smoke, before quickly standing upright, saluting me and scurrying off to ... Assault a certain demon bunny? Eat a squirrel? I don't know.
Looking at Luna, she was trying her hardest to not grin at the sight of the tiny mammal.
Clearing my throat, I drew her attention back to me.
"The name's Sheogorath, love. Freshly titled Daedrc Prince of Madness, cheese connoisseur and probably some other titles. Delighted to make your acquaintance. Have a Custard Ball," I told her in a bright tone of voice, offering the doughnut in my right hand, which she accepted with a modicum of caution.
"Luna. Princess of the Night, Guardian of Dreams and younger sister to Celestia," she offered in turn before slowly biting into her pastry, seemingly unaware that half of its contents were squishing out the opposite side, pausing for just a moment in surprise at the sweet taste and taking another bite before smiling brightly with stuffed cheeks.
It was at this point that Celestia began to sit up with a groan.
Once she had all four hooves under her, I stepped over and calmly told her, "You don't see me coming up to your place and greet you with an attempt to deviate your nasal septim, now do you?"
As she looked at me with a worried and confused expression, I skewered the remaining doughnut on her horn, watching the jam filling slowly run down along the spiral groove, before adding, "Learn some manners. Have a nice day."
Returning to Luna's side, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.
"It has been an absolute delight to meet you, your highness. Please visit any time."
With that, I turned and stepped back into my house, pretending to not notice the blush on Luna's cheeks, as my guests completely ignored their game, having their attention solely on the exchange that just occurred.
Closing my front door, I turned to them and exclaimed with a grin, "well, I'm starved, who wants jambalaya?"
...
...
...
I wasn't expecting Rumble and Thunderlane to raise their hooves.
Author's Note
Here it is, at long last!
I'm ashamed of how long it took to get it going again, but that's the case when the first chapter was written while half-delusional from illness.
Thank you all for your patience, and I do hope you will stick with me in this.
The adventures of Sam the Marten will continue throughout this fic, either as mini-chapter interludes or in the Author's Notes. Sam has no set gender at the moment, and will remain neutral until such a time as I decide it would be conducive to their story. Or funny.
I'm sorry it took so long.
