The Call of Cthulestia and Other Strange Tales

by Sixes_And_Sevens

Chapters

The Transition of Twilight Sparkle
Liquid Crystal
That Thing
Going Through a Phase
The Shape of Outer Time

The Transition of Twilight Sparkle

Twilight raced down the corridors of Canterlot Castle at a dead tilt. “Come on, girls! We’re nearly there!”

“Nearly where?” Applejack asked, not breaking pace. “Ya haven’t explained where we’re goin’ yet. Or why.”

“Or why you brought the postmare,” Rainbow Dash added.

Ditzy Doo smiled at her. “I’m just happy to be included,” she chirped.

“She was inside the teleport range!”

Rarity glanced over at the only one who was likely to be able to explain anything at all. “Spike?”

The dragon looked back from his position jogging along at Twilight’s side. “She got a letter from Princess Celestia,” he said simply. “She invited Twilight to tea.”

Everypony except Twilight stopped running. The new princess rounded on them, almost frothing. “Why did you stop?” she demanded. “This is an emergency!”

“It’s tea,” Applejack said.

“I have it with Discord every Tuesday,” Fluttershy said. “If that’s not an emergency, I don’t think this is either. Um, but I wouldn’t know one way or the other…”

“It’s tea with the Princess!”

“Tea with a princess,” Rarity corrected. “Given that there is more than one.”

“Actually, it’s tea with two princesses!” Pinkie corrected, tapping Twilight’s wings. “Maybe it’s a tea to celebrate the fact that you can fly now! Maybe it’s tea in the clouds. Hey, would that make it a high tea?”

“Girls!” Twilight shouted. “You’re all missing the point! Tea is just an excuse.”

Dead silence. “An excuse for what?” Dash asked.

“I don’t know! Another villain coming back, maybe? Whenever she calls me to Canterlot, it’s like it’s always Discord escaping, or Sombra returning, or, or, some kind of test! That’s why I brought you girls with me.”

Dash nodded. “That still doesn’t explain Ditzy, though.”

“I teleported all around Ponyville as soon as I got the letter, she just got too close to me when I cast the spell,” Twilight said, somewhat calmer. “Look, girls, this is important. It has to be important. It’s Princess Celestia, for crying out loud.”

“Well, um, what did the letter say, exactly?” Fluttershy asked.

“I--” Twilight slumped. “I didn’t finish reading it. All I read was how I needed to come to Canterlot for tea today.”

“You mean that this might just be ordinary tea?” Rarity asked, nonplussed.

“Tea with two princesses,” Pinkie hissed.

Rarity brightened. “Well, regardless, dear, I’m glad you brought us all along.”

“Want me to read out the letter, Twilight?” Spike asked.

Twilight hung her head. “Yes, please.”

“Oop! I should go. I’m not allowed to read other ponies’ mail,” Ditzy said.

“Y’ain’t reading it,” Applejack pointed out. “Yer listening to somepony else read it.”

“Good point.” Ditzy sat down, staring at Spike with wide-eyed intensity. Pinkie nudged her and proffered some popcorn.

Spike cleared his throat and began to read.

“My dear Twilight Sparkle,
I hope this letter finds you well and in good spirits; I myself am feeling quite well on this fine morning, despite the fact that Luna’s new pet opossum has apparently vomited on a priceless, seventeen-century old tapestry. It was the hideous one featuring the urn that was supposed to resemble an elephant but wound up looking like a ball of tissues and the alicorn fillies that we both agreed looked like butts when you were seven. Actually, I think the possum vomit has improved it considerably, as it has obscured the face of the creepy-looking stallion staring down from the tree.”

“Look,” Twilight said, reddening under the sea of giggles. “It was a really bad tapestry, okay?”

“Regardless of Tiberius’ explorations in art criticism, I am writing this letter to invite you to tea today. I have cleared my schedule from noon until three, so arrive whenever you please in that window. There is an important matter that I would like to discuss with you at the earliest possible opportunity.

Sincerely,

Princess Celestia.”
“...Kay,” Applejack said, nodding. “Ah see why ya mighta flown off th’ handle a bit. Important matters an’ all.”

“But looking at it calmly,” Rarity said, “there really doesn’t seem to be any reason to panic. After all, not all important matters are bad. It might simply be advice about your newfound status.”

“Okay, that could be…”

“Or maybe Cadence is having a baby!” Pinkie guessed.

“Ha! Imagine if I had to find that out from the princess instead of from Shiny,” Twilight said. “Like with his wedding, and the letter, and…” Her smile froze. “Pinkie, if you’re right, I swear I’m gonna throw a brick at his head.”

“Or maybe she explains in the postscript!” Ditzy said brightly.

“Huh?”

“On the back of the letter,” she expounded. “Look, there’s something written there.”

Spike turned the scroll over. “Oh, yeah! Good catch, Ditzy. Uh,

P.S., by ‘important matter,’ I mean that an ancient being has arisen once more, and the fate of Equestria rests on you. Trying to be less obscure in my writings, sorry. Also, do you think I could get Philomena to burn the rest of that tapestry? Just a thought.”

Twilight stared into space for a long minute. “Well,” said Fluttershy, rubbing one hoof behind the other and staring at the ground, “‘an ancient being has arisen’ can be read in so many ways. Um, maybe Discord woke up from a nap?”

Twilight’s entire face twitched. She turned on a hoof and took off down the corridor. “Right,” Ditzy sighed, taking wing. “Back to the running. Love the running.”

So it was that some five minutes later, Princess Celestia sat staring at a pile of ponies who had all tried to squeeze through the doors to the solarium at the same time. A maid clutched at her feather duster as though her life depended on it. Two guards struggled to break free of the pony-pile, but their suits of armor had become entangled. Applejack’s back legs bicycled wildly in the air as she shouted irate countryisms into Fluttershy’s left wing.

Celestia looked at the tea-table, which held six bottles of 80-proof Sweet Apple Acres hard cider. She lit her horn and pulled four more out of her drinks cabinet.

Some ten minutes later, after the guards had been pulled apart, the maid was given a cup of tea, and Ditzy Doo was escorted to the train station by Kibitz, Celestia finally sat at the table, cracked the top off one of the ciders, and took a long gulp. “Um, Princess--” Twilight began.

Celestia held up a hoof and continued to guzzle. She paused a moment to take a breath, and Twilight tried again. “Your highness--”

“Not now, Twi,” Applejack said. “Can’t you see that’s a mare enjoyin’ her cider?”

The bottle finally drained, Celestia set it down with a heavy thump. “Indeed,” she said. “Your family makes an excellent brew, Applejack.”

The farmer smiled proudly. “We do our best.”

“So, uh, Princess,” Twilight said. “What’s the matter? What ancient evil has returned this time?”

Celestia stared at her blankly. “Ancient evil.”

“Yes.”

Celestia blinked. “There is no ancient evil, Twilight.”

“You said there was.”

“I didn’t.”

“You said ‘an ancient being has arisen once more, and the fate of Equestria rests on you.’ That sounds pretty unambiguous.”

Celestia hummed. “I take your point,” she said. “Clearly, the habit of obfuscatory writing is harder to break than I’d thought…”

“So, uh, what’s up, Princess?” Dash asked. “Cuz, if there’s not an ancient monster or whatever coming back, I should really get back to Ponyville and catch up on sleep. Work! I meant work!”

Celestia let out a long, heartfelt sigh. “I had intended for only Twilight to come,” she said mournfully. “None of the rest of you ought to be involved in this. You don’t deserve the punishment that is this knowledge weighing on you.”

Fluttershy whimpered and crouched behind the largest object in her immediate vicinity. Namely, Applejack’s butt. The farmer pursed her lips, but said, “Well, Ah reckon we kin jes’ amble on down to the train station, wait fer you an’ Twilight ta finish up…”

“No.” Celestia stared out of a window. “No, as much as I hate to burden all of you, it is vital that you know what is to come. To know what will happen to Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight’s heart turned to stone. “Happen-- to me?” she squeaked. Spike rested a restraining claw on her back.

Celestia bowed her head. “I fear so. Now that you have ascended, you will enter a period of pain unlike any other, a torment that will burn inside you day and night until its power is spent. Some have called it Apotheosis. Others know it as Enlightenment. I prefer to call it by its real name.”

She cracked open another bottle of hard cider and took a swig. “Alicorn puberty.”

There was a long, dead silence. Then Rainbow Dash burst out laughing. “Are-- are you serious?” she wheezed. “What, do you break out in magic zits? Start crushing on stars?”

“Not exactly.” Celestia pulled out a thin journal. “It’s been some nine hundred years since Cadence’s own ascension. Nine centuries since this book was last used. Its dark secrets must never, under any circumstances, be shared with any being not currently in this room. Am I understood?”

Even Rainbow sobered enough to Pinkie Promise her silence. Celestia nodded once and lay the elderly book-- really more of a pamphlet-- gingerly on the table. Its cover read Your Changing Body: A Book for Elder Gods.

Twilight went red. “You have to be kidding me.”

Celestia looked her faithful student dead in the eye. “You have no idea how much I wish that were true,” she said, deadly serious. “Were that Cadence’s puberty nothing more than a cruel joke…”

Rarity sidled over and joined Fluttershy in crouching behind Applejack’s butt. Applejack huffed. “Well, what exactly is this alicorn hoo-hah, anyhow?”

Celestia nodded thoughtfully. “A good question. You have, I suppose, realized that alicorns aren’t normal ponies.”

Rainbow Dash looked up at the princess, who stood at easily three times Dash’s on height. She drank in the floating, flowing mane that defied gravity. She observed the horn and wings. “Ya don’t say.”

Celestia smiled. “Mm. When it comes right down to it, alicorns technically aren’t ponies at all.”

Dead silence. “That-- that’s ridiculous,” Twilight sputtered. “Of course you are! You’ve got four hooves and manes and cutie marks--”

“Oh, yes,” Celestia agreed. “We appear very similar. But then again, a coconut has hair and produces milk, and we don’t consider that to be a mammal.”

“So… is Twilight going nuts?” Pinkie asked, grinning.

Her friends groaned, but Celestia broke into peals of laughter. “Oh, yes, that’s a good one,” she said. “But, no. Alicorns are just slightly more uncommon than nuts. Perhaps it would be a good idea if I were to show you what I mean.”

She levitated six pairs of sunglasses over to Twilight and her friends. Spike frowned. “Uh, hey! Still here.”

“Oh, Twilight, you won’t need those,” Celestia explained hastily. “You’re an alicorn, too.”

Twilight frowned, but passed her pair of sunglasses back to her number-one assistant. “I don’t understand. What are you going to do?”

Celestia looked around to make sure that everypony else had a pair of sunglasses on. “This.”

With that, she burst into flames. Twilight let out a cry and leapt forward, but the heat was so great, she was forced back. All she could do was watch helplessly as her mentor burned, her head thrown back in screams of purest agony--

Wait.

Was she--

She was! She was laughing! The flames subsided slightly, and the air cooled from ‘stuffy welding workshop’ to merely ‘in front of a fireplace’. “You should have seen your face,” Celestia said, gasping.

But Twilight’s horror returned with a vengeance when she saw what had become of her beloved teacher. Eyes, myriad and staring, were set in translucent flesh. Each of them was weeping tears that resembled lava more than water. Her mane had transformed into writhing tentacles of pure light, a pink and orange aurora. Though she hadn’t been wearing her regalia when Twilight and her friends had entered the room, she now bore hoops of gold that orbited her head and neck, as well as golden shoes. Oh, look, the shoes had eyes, too. That wasn’t overkill at all, Twilight thought hysterically. Even the princess’s horn had been transfigured, now resembling an obelisk of glass, its edges covered with thin strips of gold and its core burning with brilliant marigold light.

Celestia smiled at Twilight and took a step forward, extending a hoof. Then her dozens of eyes went wide as she stepped into a pool of her own tears and slipped, skidding off to the side and smacking into the table. Ow.

Twilight’s concern for her mentor immediately overrode her fear and confusion at Celestia’s new body. “Oh my gosh! Princess, are you alright?”

Celestia pushed herself off the table with a wing. I’ll be fine. Though I may find myself with a black eye tomorrow morning. She thought. Possibly three black eyes.

She looked around at the assembled. Pinkie, Rainbow, and even Spike had taken cover behind Applejack’s rear. Applejack herself looked to be fighting an internal battle over whether she ought to feel resigned or terrified. Er, said Celestia. I think now would be an excellent time for cider.

That broke the ice. “Buck yeah!” Dash said, swooping out from where she’d been hidden.

“RD! Don’t you go drinkin’ all that cider without waitin’ fer the rest of us!” Applejack said, storming after her.

Fluttershy, finding herself devoid of cover quickly made do with the next best thing. “Good heavens,” said Rarity, looking behind her. “This is rather… something.”

Applejack spared a moment from arguing with Dash to throw Rarity a flat look.

“Spike, I can understand why Fluttershy is back there, but what good will hiding behind me do you?” Rarity asked.

Spike grinned. “I, uh, like the view?”

“Ah. Carry on.”

Pinkie, meanwhile, had her eye on a different drink. “Hey, Princess, what do your tears taste like?”

My tears are liquid fire. They can cure all ills, but it comes at a terrible price.

“What price?” Twilight asked, suddenly anxious again.

They sting like the dickens and taste like petrol. Don’t try it.

Pinkie quickly pulled back from the orange puddle. “So, when does Twilight start to grow extra eyes?”

She may not, Celestia said. All alicorns look different. Luna’s body is covered in inky sigils. Cadence resembles a walking jelly. Discord-- well, Discord actually looks more or less the same as they do now.

“But Discord isn’t an alicorn,” Fluttershy objected. Then she remembered that she was terrified. “Er, your terrible and awesome majesty.”

Celestia winced. Given all her eyes, it resembled nothing so much as a full-body spasm. Just Celestia, please, Fluttershy. I’m still the same mare I ever was. Just a little… undressed.

Fluttershy blushed, and so did Rarity. Applejack, Dash, and Spike all turned to look at Celestia with wide eyes. Pinkie just started chuckling all over again. Not like that!

Twilight gave a long, drawn out sigh. “Cider. We were having cider, and Celestia was going to explain how in Tartarus I’m going to turn into…” she waved a hoof. “That.”

Or something like it, Celestia said primly, sitting down. Come and look at this book, Twilight, and tell me what you think.

Twilight and her friends gathered around the table and looked at the tome as Celestia reached out a tendril of light and turned to the first page. “What’s that?” Dash asked, squinting at a picture of what looked like it might have once been a pipe organ that had since been converted into something entirely other.

“I can’t even tell if it’s a plant or a machine,” Rarity said.

It’s the author, Celestia explained. Prince Mentiad, alicorn of mind. He left the mortal realm some centuries ago to study in the higher dimensions.

“There are other alicorns?” Twilight asked.

A few, Celestia said. We can discuss that later.

Twilight frowned at that non-answer, but turned the page. “What’s Happening to Me?” she read out. “So, you’ve become an alicorn. That’s a pretty good step forward in life. You get phenomenal cosmic powers, great political capability, and the ability to fly/cast spells/be really strong and fast (delete whichever you could do already). However, there is a downside to becoming an alicorn. Actually, there are a lot of downsides, mostly relating to how much immortality can suck. But that’s another book. This book is about how your changing body.

“Your body is changing. Everypony’s body is changing. That’s just entropy. However, your body is changing in a very unique and special way. While most beings have cells that die and are replaced by new cells (most life), or die and are replaced by themselves in a wash of fire (phoenixes), or just die (the living dead, e.g., liches), your cells will die and be replaced by…”

Twilight frowned. “My cells are going to be replaced by ‘smudge’?”
Ah, said Celestia. There’s not really any word that actually explains what this is. She gestured to herself. I generally plump for cosmic matter, but that’s not even close to accurate.

Rainbow poked Celestia’s side experimentally. The princess's body gave way like the skin on top of old paint, and Dash pulled her smoldering hoof out as quickly as she could. Celestia grinned at her. Rainbow quickly looked away and took a swig of her cider.

Twilight turned back to her book. “Let’s see… long explanation of what this stuff is, mostly explained in other smudged words…” she flipped to the end of the chapter. “Here we go, the chapter summary. ‘Sugar and spice and everything nice, that’s what little girls are made of. Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that’s what little boys are made of. Most nonbinary foals are made of rainbows and dreams and cookie dough ice cream. Alicorns are made of tentacles, dark matter, and chocolate cake batter.’ Huh?”

He got the avatar of insanity and creativity to write the summaries.

“I like those,” Pinkie said. “They’re way easier to understand.” She grabbed the book away.

“Hey!” Twilight said.

“Let’s see. The summary for ‘Alicorns are from Pluto, Draconocci are from Jove’ says ‘The line between chaos and order is thin, ill-defined, and coated in a thin layer of honey.’ ‘Your Body: An Owner’s Manual’ is summarized as ‘Your body is a temple. It’s up to you how literally you want to take that. Blood sacrifices are discouraged, but not completely out of the question.’ And then there’s ‘This Is the Pits. That’s the Tummy, Over There Is the Tail, and Down There Are the Naughty--”

Twilight yanked the book back from Pinkie. That’s enough, she said, and everypony saw stars. Literally. Bright, multicolored constellations danced before their eyes, dazzling them even behind the sunglasses.

Celestia beamed. Excellent use of the Royal Canterlot Voice, Twilight, she praised. Perhaps a little uncontrolled, but these things take time.

Applejack took a shaky swig of her cider. “What in Sam Hill was all that?” she asked. “Ah see it every time Twi gets pissy, an’ it’s causing some problems.”

Twilight looked at her friend, indignant. “Like what?” she demanded.

“Well…”

***

Caramel lay with his belly to the ground, shaking like a leaf. His eyes were glassy and full of bright colors incomprehensible to his tortured mind. “Please,” he gasped. “Please, have mercy, mercy on me!”

Above him, violet eyes blazed with all the colors of the night, the fury of the meteor showers, the brilliance of the aurora, the ultimate dread of the black holes. All but the alicorn had faded from his vision, but faint stars danced and swirled in the darkness. MERCY? She demanded.

Caramel’s tongue lolled, his mouth frothing. His eyes bulged as he licked the ground at her hooves. YOU USED A FRIED EGG AS A BOOKMARK AND YOU ASK ME FOR MERCY? YOUR FINE IS FIFTY BITS, AND NO LESS!

With that final proclamation, Caramel’s mind finally collapsed. The last thing he saw before he blacked out completely was a red rubber stamp.

***

“He was in the hospital for a week and a half,” Applejack concluded. “Ah’d say that was a pretty big problem.”

Twilight threw her hooves wide. “It was a first edition!” she squawked. “It took me twice that long just to track down a copy that was for sale!”

Now, Twilight, Celestia lectured, with great cosmic power comes great responsibility.

“Did-- did you seriously just quote Spidermare?” Dash asked, eyebrows raised.

It was hard to make out a blush on a creature made of light, but Celestia’s face did turn a little pinker. No. Of course not.

Spike smirked. “I knew somepony in the castle used to borrow my comics!” he said.

“Yeah, okay, you read Marevel books, but what about PC? C’mon, you gotta love Supermare!”

Any-- Twilight cleared her throat and took a few deep breaths. “Anyway. Celestia, can you just tell me what’s going to happen to me? Please? I just-- I want to hear you say it.”

Celestia’s light dimmed. Ah. Very well. She took a deep breath. You will become more than you are now, and greater in many ways. In other ways, you will become lesser. In most ways-- all of the important ways-- you will hardly change at all. You will still be Twilight Sparkle, as much as you were before your ascension.

Celestia faded more, and her coat and mane began to fade back to normal. “You will still love books, and your friends, and science. You will still strive to do all the things you strove to do before. You will be yourself, but with more power, and with a wildly different shape.”

The last few eyes winked shut, leaving the princess with only two. “Things will change, Twilight, as they always must. You can’t hold that back forever, and it’s seldom a good idea to try. But the important things learn to adapt to those changes, and continue on; different, but just as good. Better, perhaps.”

Twilight nodded. “Thank you, Celestia.”

“You’re most welcome, Twilight.”

“Celestia?”

“Hm?”

“One of your eyes is on your chest.”

“Oh!” Celestia looked down/up and met her own gaze. “Darn it, I can never get it right without a mirror.” She grinned at them all, and they all laughed. Most of that laughter wasn’t even terrified.

***

Later, when she had returned home, Twilight looked into a mirror of her own. She checked the book at her side. The long-missing Mentiad advised her to stare into her own eyes and lose focus. She gazed into the looking-glass for a long time. This is ridiculous, she thought. I must’ve lost focus ages ago. Look how unfocused I am! I’m not even thinking about seeing myself anymore. A beat. Dammit.

She started reciting her multiplication tables in her head. Around the time she got to the sevens, she caught sight of something in her mirror. Its horns were ram’s horns, and its skin freckled with shifting constellations. Skin was, perhaps, not quite the word. It was as though a part of the evening sky had coalesced into the rough shape of a pony. Whenever she breathed out, purple smoke filled the air, hiding most of her face. All that could be seen were two brilliant pink stars. Eyes. Her eyes. Twilight smiled at her reflection.

There was a knock at the door. “Not now!” Twilight called, glancing over her shoulder. She turned back to the mirror and saw her normal pony features once again. But there was something in her eyes…

“Come on, Twilight, it’s your turn to cook dinner, and Trixie is starving!”

“Just a minute!” She paused. “I’m changing!”

Liquid Crystal

Shining Armor was quite worried about his wife. This wasn’t something he did that often. Cadence was more than capable of taking care of herself. She could bench-press their bed while he was still on it, was adept enough at magic to almost rival Twilight, and had been spending a lot of her free time trying to work out how to pull off a Sonic Love-Boom. So despite his inclination to fear for the safety of all his loved ones and protect all those whom he cared for, he was more or less willing to accept that Cadence could probably do just fine all on her own against any physical threat against her person.

But this, Shining feared, was not a physical threat. In recent weeks, his beloved had started to become greyer. The bounce had gone from her step, the curl was fading from her mane. She smiled less and sighed more, and she walked as though her tiara and peytral each weighed ten times as much as they had originally. It didn’t take a genius to work out that something was very much on Cadence’s mind, and it was taking its toll on her body.

So it was that one afternoon, he informed the palace secretary that all the day’s remaining appointments were to be rescheduled, put Flurry Heart down for a nice nap, and rented a room at the Crystal Palace Spa under an assumed name. He did wind up waiting in that room for an hour before he realized he’d neglected to tell his wife any of this, but he sent a messenger to go and find her.

When Cadence did arrive, she wasn’t in the best of moods. “Shining Armor,” she said shortly, storming into the room. “What do you mean by cancelling all my meetings? I had a lot of work… planned… for today…”

She stopped in her tracks, staring at the scene set before her. Shining looked up from where he was dangling his hind hooves in the hot tub and smiled up at her. “You like it?”

“I…” she glanced around the room. Everywhere a tea light could plausibly sit, one was already there. Lilies and lotuses floated on the surface of the hot tub, and a row of her favorite scented oils were sitting open by the massage table. Shining had even set up a gramophone, which was playing soft, relaxing music. “Wow,” she said, the anger fading from her eyes. “You did all this yourself?”

“Well, some of this was already here,” her husband admitted. “But, yeah. I thought you might like a little afternoon off, y’know? A little tender,” he rose and moved closer.

“Loving,” he continued, drawing up to her side.

“Care.” He kissed her gently, and she leaned into him.

“Mm,” she said, breaking away after a few seconds. “Well, I’d have preferred it if you’d told me about this first, but I wouldn’t say no to a little bit of pampering.”

Shining smiled. “Great! What do you want to do first?”

“I’d like a massage. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been feeling pretty tense recently.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda why I did this,” Shining said, trotting over to the table. “What’s the matter, Cady?”

Cadence frowned and looked away. “I don’t know if I can explain.”

Shining patted the massage table invitingly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.

Cadence sighed as she lay down on the table. “No, I do want to tell you. I just… don’t have all the right words. And…”

“And?” Shining asked, shaking lavender oil over his beloved’s back.

Cadence sighed again, but this time it was more relieved. “I’m… afraid of what you’ll think of me,” she said reluctantly.

Shining began to knead Cadence’s back, and she groaned, stretching like a cat under his touch. “Is this another thing about what you want to do in the bedroom?” he asked. “Because I think after last Wednesday, we’ve established that I’m willing to try anything once.”

“Yes,” Cadence agreed. “Did you finish writing that thank-you note to those three stallions yet?”

“Sent them off this morning. But honey, I promise. There’s nothing you can tell me that’ll make me stop loving you, not even if it’s that you’re actually another changeling queen in disguise.”

He paused in his tender ministrations, much to Cadence’s displeasure. “You aren’t, though, right?”

“Well,” Cadence hedged, “No, I’m not a changeling queen. Go back to what you were doing.”

Obediently, Shining did so. “Not a changeling queen. Fine, that’s a start. But you are in disguise.”

“Mm, mhm,” Cadence said. “Ooh, yes, that’s the spot. Y’know, ah, this should really be your prime method for getting information out of prison--OH BABY, YES!”

She wriggled happily, and Shining smiled briefly. Very briefly. “You’re in disguise?” he prompted.

“Allll th’ alicorns are,” Cadence slurred, flattening herself against the table. “Don’t actually look like pretty pretty pon-pons.”

“Oh,” said Shining, remembering suddenly the letter he’d gotten from Twilight about Princess Celestia being made of sunlight and giving her and all her friends ‘the Talk.’ At the time, he thought she’d just been on another week-long reading binge and had started hallucinating again. “Alright, then. So, what are you, really?”

Cadence’s brow furrowed. “Hard to explain. Words not good,” she murmured.
“Rub a little lower.”

“Can you show me?” Shining asked.

“Rub a little lower, and I will,” Cadence said.

Shining moved his hooves down her back until he was almost giving her a butt massage instead. “Is this good?”

Cadence’s response was almost inaudible, and didn’t consist of any words Shining had ever heard. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, grinning. “So, will you show me what you actually look like, now?”

Cadence groaned. “Nuuu. You’ll think it’s weird…”

“Cady. When we got married, I swore to stay with you for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, and even through kitchen remodeling. No matter what, I fell in love with you. It doesn’t matter what you look like, that’s never gonna change.”

Silence. “...Kay,” she said.

Shining’s first impression was that he’d just dipped his hooves in jelly. He looked down. His forehooves were halfway submerged in his wife. He could see them, tinted pink and somewhat refracted, through her translucent body. Hesitantly, he pushed a little, and his hooves went in further yet. He pulled both hooves out. There was a slight ‘squelch’ noise, as though he’d just pulled out of quicksand. “Uh,” said Shining Armor.

Cadence sat up. “Told you,” she said sadly.

Shining took a moment to drink it all in. Cadence’s wings and ears now resembled fishy fins. Her eyes were orbs of pure violet, set into the translucent, dripping, pink ectoplasm of her body. Her horn was now a sort of tentacle, tipped with a ball of light, like an anglerfish. At the center of it all, her heart beat. It was now a roughly spherical ball of tubes rolled around itself, blowing out a steady stream of bubbles, but it was definitely her heart. Shining was quite sure of that. “Wow,” he said quietly. “You’re-- gorgeous.”

Cadence drew back, surprised. “Really? You think so?”

“Of course!” Shining said. “Like you could ever be anything else.”

Cadence smiled. It was a little strange, given her decrease in definition, but it was absolutely a smile. “You’re so sweet,” she sighed, leaning in for a kiss.

Shining puckered up and closed his eyes. Suddenly, his muzzle was submerged in ectoplasm. His eyes shot open. His snout was shoved in his wife’s face. Literally. Cadence quickly pulled away. “Oops, sorry.”

Shining wiped the slime off his snout. It smelled like raspberries, rum, and something difficult to place. “‘S okay,” he said.

It wasn’t exactly okay. Had this happened to Twilight when she ascended? Why had Cadence kept this from him for so long? Did she not trust him? What would he tell his parents when Twilight suddenly turned into goop?

But Cadence was worried about his reaction, so he shoved all his concerns to the back of his mind. “C’mon, lie down and I’ll finish your massage.”

Cadence sighed happily and lay back down on the table. "You're so sweet," she murmured, already sinking back into sheer relaxation.

He continued to work at her back for the next ten or so minutes. It was like sculpting Jell-O, or splashing around in a lake. Her groans and sighs of pleasure grew quieter and more infrequent until they were replaced with soft snores. Shining sat back, satisfied that his efforts had been appreciated.

Now that he could safely start to panic without upsetting his wife, he did so earnestly, pacing the floor up and down and up and down. What else had Twilight said in her letter? He hadn’t paid enough attention, having assumed it had been nothing more than the product of his sister’s sleep-deprived brain. Something about cosmic energy. His brain, as it so often did, turned to comic books. Cosmic radiation, perhaps? That was what had given the Fabulous Five their powers.

He looked at his wife. Well, the Being looked more like a pile of rocks, but a puddle of goo didn’t seem wholly out of the question. But no, she’d said that all the alicorns were like this, and so had Twilight, and it seemed unlikely that cosmic rays would be able to strike on-planet anyway.

A new note of horror struck him. Was Flurry Heart secretly a gooey blob as well? He imagined his infant daughter, absorbed by her own diaper. He shuddered.

No. Speculation wouldn’t help anything. Cadence knew more about this than he ever would. He’d wait for her to wake up, they could sit together in the hot tub, and she could answer all of his questions then. It would all be fine.

It was at this point that he noticed his hooves were wet. Thinking that perhaps he’d splashed some water out of the tub earlier, or spilled some scented oils, he absently rubbed his hoof on a rug. The rug squished unpleasantly. Shining Armor looked down. The floor was covered in pink fluid.

He looked to his wife. Cadence had melted.

His first reaction, as perhaps was only natural, was Oh, what the heck? My wife has melted. Except, obviously, he didn’t think the word ‘heck’.

His second reaction was OH WHAT THE HECK, MY WIFE HAS JUST MELTED, except he really really didn’t think the work ‘heck’.

Shining forced himself to calm down. Clearly, this was some kind of side effect of whatever transformation Cadence had undergone. She had been a sort of jelly before, maybe when she went to sleep, she lost control of her form.

Some small, detached part of his brain noted that the pink liquid was rising. He ignored that for now. Cadence was all over the floor. One of her eyes drifted by lazily, like a rubber duck. He watched it circle the hot tub as the jets of water pushed the liquid in the tub-- and now all over the floor-- around and around. Shining frowned. He didn’t remember setting the hot tub to ‘whirlpool’.

He peered inside. Oh. It wasn’t the jets of water that was making Cadence swirl. The plug at the bottom of the tub had sprung open, and she was running down the drain.

SHE WAS RUNNING DOWN THE DRAIN?

His wife was slipping away. So too was his sanity, and any semblance of a grip he’d ever had on the situation. Shining struggled to keep from slipping into hysteria. What should he do? What could he do? The primary concern, of course, was to stop any more of Cadence from going down the drain. So he floundered over to the hot tub (the liquid was nearly up to his chest, now), took a deep breath, and plunged in.

He felt around for the plug, but couldn’t find it. He risked opening one eye. Surprisingly, it felt perfectly normal. He opened the other eye and searched around for the drain cover. There! He swam a few meters, snatched up the prize, and shoved it into the drain. Around him, the current began to slow. He paddled upwards toward the surface. At least, that was the plan. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of a surface anymore. He looked around, frantic. He could see above him some part of the room that was still above the pink fluid, but no matter how hard he swam, he never drew any closer. His lungs were burning. Was this how he would meet his end? Would he drown inside his wife?

His head was spinning, and his limbs felt as if they were full of stuffing. He could take it no more. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, preparing for the sensation of death.

It didn’t come. Shining opened his eyes. He took another breath. It wasn’t quite like breathing air; it was like sucking a straw expecting water and suddenly being faced with a milkshake instead. However, like drinking a milkshake, Shining was fully capable of putting in the little extra effort required to breathe the fluid. It tasted much like it had smelled, like raspberry rum with a little something extra mixed in. He let himself sink back to the floor, deep in thought. The room seemed stretched. The walls were much higher and farther apart down here. It was as if he himself had shrunk, though if that were the case, then everything else in the room had shrunk with him.

He considered this, decided that it didn’t really matter, and made for the door as quickly as he could. It refused to open. Try as he might, Shining couldn’t convince the door to open inwards, pushing all the pink fluid out of the way. The pressure difference was just too great. He glared at the door, thinking. If it wouldn’t open inwards, he thought, maybe he could make it open outwards.

He lit his horn. An energy lance harpooned the door, blasting a huge hole in it. That would be a check he’d have to write later, he thought as he was quickly and unceremoniously pushed through the hole and down the corridor on a wild wave. He struggled to keep control in the raging torrent; just because he couldn’t drown in this didn’t mean he couldn’t be swept into a wall and get a concussion, for example, and oh look, the main doors.

He washed up, coughing and sputtering, on the street, surrounded by soaking spa workers and perplexes passers by. He smiled. “Sorry, folks. Nothing to see here. Just some problems with the plumbing.”

There was a long moment of muttering. “What is this stuff?” somepony asked.

“Why’s it pink?” another wanted to know.

“Smells like rum,” a third observed.

“Don’t drink it!” Shining shouted.

“Why not?”

“Is it poison?”

“Is there poison in the water supply?”

“No, no,” Shining said, waving a hoof quickly. “It’s uh, just been on the ground. You don’t want to drink something off the ground, right?”

Murmurs of agreement. “And, and there’s probably a lot of shampoo and stuff in there now,” Shining continued. “Not safe, my friends. Certainly not tasty. If you could all just move off the streets, the Sanitation Department will see to it that this is tidied away.”

More mutters of assent, and the street began to clear. The spa workers buggered off as well, thought Shining suspected that a repair bill would be sent winging toward the castle in a few days. He pushed that thought away. Money was hardly an issue. He was much more worried about his wife, pouring out over the streets. Continuing, actually, to pour out all over the streets. There was a sound, a great creaking groan, and Shining turned to see that all the windows were straining under immense pressure. Waves of pink lapped at his hooves, and he could feel himself sinking, almost imperceptibly, back into that vast pink ocean. He waded away, quickly as he could. To an outside observer, it would seem that Shining had sunk into the street itself, given that he was knee deep in a puddle that seemed too shallow to cover the top of his hooves.

Finally, he struggled back onto dry crystal and galloped away from the ever-growing pool of water. Then, he slipped. His wet hooves had no purchase on the glass-smooth sidewalk. Behind him, he heard the sound of shattering glass, followed by the roar of rushing fluid. Desperate now, he scrambled to his hooves and tried again to gallop away. No good! He fell tail over snout once again. He couldn’t get any traction. The rushing noise was getting ever closer.

He threw dignity to the winds. Lying flat on his stomach, he stretched out his forehooves and kicked the nearest building. He skimmed along the ground like a penguin. A wet, furry, screaming penguin. When he slowed, he kicked out his hind legs again, and again, and again, racing the rushing river down the streets of the Empire toward the castle. He knew he wouldn’t make it. The noise was growing louder and louder, and it was coming from all sides now. He was surrounded.

Above him, he heard the flap of wings and the clatter of metal. He knew who it was before the stallion even spoke. There was only one pegasus in the guard who never tied on his armor right. “Sir! Sir, I’ve got reports of flooding in--”

“Lieutenant Sentry,” Shining said neutrally, “I believe I’m already aware of the situation.”

“Yes, sir.” A pause. “Would you like an air lift, sir?”

“That would be most appreciated, Lieutenant, yes.”

A moment later, a pair of orange hooves grabbed him round the middle and hauled him bodily into the air. “We’ve got emergency evacuation protocols going on for this entire district, sir, and a wall of sandbags--”

“Won’t do us any good against this,” Shining sighed. “On the upside, it’s breathable. Found that out the hard way.”

“...What is this stuff, Commander Armor?”

Shining shook his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know. I know it’s a long flight, Lieutenant, but can you carry me to my bedroom?”

“Well, I’m flattered, sir, but in the middle of an emergency?”

“Not for that!” Shining said. “Not until next Tuesday, anyway, remember to wear the cat ears. Cady loved that. No, I need to write a letter.”

“...In the middle of an emergency?”

“I believe there’s only one mare who can help us now, Lieutenant. Just pray that she’s awake…”

***

It was a weary Lieutenant Sentry who crashed through the windows into the Royal Bedchamber five minutes later. The chaos in the city below was terrific. As Shining had predicted, the sandbags had done nothing, and they had been swallowed up along with two platoons of guards. On the outskirts of the spreading floodwaters, ponies screamed and ran and were ultimately consumed. On the bright side, ponies who had been in the pink fluid for a while had come to more or less the same conclusions Shining had earlier, and were even now swimming around cheerfully; in the pink, as it were. Some few had even made it to the surface, and were playing a sort of volleyball game with-- where had they found a beach ball this far north? All the water in the city was icemelt off the mountains!

Well, never mind that now. “Flash,” he said, digging in his stationery cupboard, “there’s a box under the bed.”

“Thought you said we weren’t doing that.”

“No, that’s the box in the wardrobe. Look for a sort of laminated box, with a green sticker on it.”

“Right you are, sir.”

Shining sat down at his desk and stared at the parchment. How to write a letter like this? He set his jaw. Years upon years of writing reports of incursions and alarums in Canterlot had prepared him for this very letter. He would stick to the frank, matter-of-fact style that had served him throughout his career.

Dear Princess Luna,

My wife has turned into a pond lake flood. She has currently swallowed approx. ½ the population of the empire. 0 fatalities, intermediate property damage, is causing a breach of peace. Please advise as quickly as possible.

He looked over the letter and frowned.

Hope all well your end.

-Prince Consort and Commander of Equestrian Armed Forces Sir Shining Armor

Luna always responded well to formality. He hadn’t put in all of his titles, admittedly. He couldn’t remember half of them. Under the circumstances, though, he felt he had done his best.

“What exactly is in the box, sir?”

“Open it up and you’ll find out,” Shining said, rolling up the scroll.

Flash did as he was told, and was bathed in green light. “...Whoa,” he said.

“Bottled dragonfire,” Shining said, picking up a glowing jar marked with a little blue moon. “Provided by none other than the brave and glorious hero of the empire, my little brother. Bottoms up!”

He opened the top of the container and threw the scroll into the gout of green flame, which swirled away into nothing. “And now we wait for a reply,” Shining said, satisfied.

Flash glanced out the window. “If that’s all, Commander, I need to get back to my duties out there. There’s a lot of panicked ponies out on the streets.”

“Yes, of course--” Shining paused. “Did you hear that?”

“What, sir?”

Shining circled a hoof. “Sort of a… ker-chunk. Like a water hammer in an old faucet. There it is again!”

Flash frowned. “Sounds like it’s coming from the bathroom, sir.”

“Explains the old faucet part, I suppose. We really have to get that plumbing refit.” He froze. “Plumbing.”

“Sir?”

“It’s in the pipes. It’s gotten into the plumbing!” Shining said, racing for the bathroom.

Sure enough, there was a steady drip of pink coming out of the shower nozzle, the sink, the tub, everywhere. The pipes were bulging and starting to shudder. Shining reached out and turned on all the faucets, and pink fluid poured out. “Lieutenant, spread the word. Turn on all the faucets you can find.”

“Yes, sir. What will you be doing?”

Shining’s horn glowed, and a scroll popped into being right in front of him. “I suspect I’m about to find out. Go, before any serious damage is done to the empire’s infrastructure.”

Lieutenant Sentry nodded once and was gone. Shining unrolled the scroll.

To his Highness Prince Consort and Commander of Equestrian Armed Forces Sir Shining Armor, Lord Crystal, Lawful Good Knight of Incancunabula and Hall Monitor,

Well, now that was just petty. How did she even know about his O&O games?

In response to thy earlier inquiry as concerns the flooding of your city by your wife, We consulted Our personal copy of ‘the Alicron’. We would advise thou to peruse it as soon as thee acquire the safety equipment that such an undertaking should require (example gratis, polarized sunglasses, oven mitts, and a protective rune circle). The ritual for containing thy wife when she is unable to control her form is relatively simple. Thou must take a bowl, vase, goblet, any sort of container so long as it is empty. Then, it is necessary to locate her. If she has grown to the size you say, this should prove simple.

Once this has been achieved, thou must recite the Poem of Containment (reverse) and hold aloft the container. Once she is contained, thou must on no account spill her, lest the cycle begin anew. She will awaken anon and recover her usual form.

As for thy other concern, all is not well at Canterlot Castle! Only this morning, mine sister put a bucket of water above mine chamber door! Effrontery! Fear not, however, for We shall have Our revenge when We fill her life with SPIDERS! HAHA! Who then will be the Pranking Queen?

Yours faithfully,

Her Royal Highness the Guardian of the Night and Dreams, Protectorate of Childishness, Raiser of the Moon, the Real Pranking Queen, Bearer of Laughter, Loyalty, and Generosity, the Dark Planet Lit by No Sun, Lucifer Nox…

Shining flipped over the page.

… of the Chocolate Bunnies, Chaotic Neutral Sorceress, Princess Luna.

Below that was printed a short poem. Shining stared. Surely it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

Well, it was worth a shot. He re-entered the bathroom, shaking the toothbrushes out of their cup as he did so. He held it right next to the flow from the sink faucet and read aloud,

“I know you little, I love you lots;

My love for you would fill ten pots,

Fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,

Three teacups and four dishpans.”

Then, he stuck the cup under the faucet and pulled it out quickly when it was about halfway full. Before his eyes, the liquid continued to rise as he set it on the bathroom counter, until it was full to brimming. A purple orb appeared, then a second. Then a tangle of tubes composed roughly in the shape of a sphere.

The sink was running clear again, as was the shower. His fur, to his surprise, was dirty, but dry. He ran out of the room to look down on the streets below. They were shined clean and full of confused, complaining crystal ponies, many holding boogie boards and wearing swimsuits. One or two sadly took their bathing-machines to be returned to storage. He smiled down at them all and waved. Then he remembered that he was near the top of the castle, and that probably nopony could see him wave unless they were actually looking for it.

He sighed and went back to the bathroom, where he found a figure rising slowly from the toothbrush cup. “Hello, love.”

The tiny figure of his wife smiled up at him. “Hello, Shiny. Did I drift off in the middle of your lovely massage?”

He thought about that. “In a manner of speaking,” he replied.

“Sorry,” she said, sitting on the counter and growing. Already she was the size of a toddler. “Sometimes, it’s just nice to spread out a little, you know? Just go with the flow.”

Shining stifled a snort of laughter. “Sorry, did I say something funny?” Cadence asked.

“No, sorry,” Shining said.

She hopped off the counter, landing on all fours with a gooey ‘splat’. “Then what?”

“Y’know, I see what you mean,” Shining said casually. “Sometimes it’s nice to let somepony wash away your stresses, like water off a duck’s back.”

Cadence’s eyes went wide as she took in Shining’s filthy coat, the fact that all the taps were on, and the fact that she’d just come out of the toothbrush holder. “Shiny?”

“Cady?”

“Dry up.”

He smirked. “Cry me a river, my sweet.”

"Shining Armor!"

"Water you talking about? Whoa, Cady, no. Cady, no, that-- haha-- that tickles! Cadence, Cady, haha, stop! Uncle, uncle!"

Author's Note

Poem used is "I Know You Little, I Love You Lots" by Shel Silverstein.

That Thing

“Well,” said Twilight Sparkle to nopony in particular. “This is new.”

“That’s… certainly one way of putting it,” Rarity agreed.

“Indeed,” said Mayor Mare. “I’m sure you can plainly see why I’ve called you here?”

The five mares gazed up at the immense edifice before them, a towering and blocky shape that seemed to scrape against the clouds. At the top, something glimmered orange in the refracted sunlight. At the bottom, long and clawlike tendrils flexed, curling upward toward the sky.

“Um,” said Applejack. “...Not really?”

The Mayor made an exasperated gesture at the shape. “You’re the Elements of Harmony. That… thing is certainly disharmonious. I want it gone, as soon as possible.”

There was a long silence. “I mean,” said Rainbow. “We can’t actually do much of anything without Fluttershy -- Elements-wise, I mean -- and she told me the other day that she was going out of town.”

Mayor Mare’s face fell. “I don’t suppose she said when she’d be back?”

“Nope.”

“I mean,” Twilight said, scratching her head. “It isn’t as though it’s doing anything especially… disharmonious, I guess.”

“I beg to differ,” the Mayor said sharply. “For one thing, it’s taken up nearly half of the marketplace, and for another, it’s been erected without a permit. That’s not only disharmonious, it’s borderline anarchistic!”

“...Those aren’t synonyms,” Twilight muttered under her breath.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. Well, we can’t exactly friendship-blast it without Fluttershy, but I suppose we can see if there are any more mundane measures we can take to remove it.”

Mayor Mare visibly sagged in relief. “Oh, thank you, Princess. I need to return to my office now, but I’ll be back to check on your progress around noon.”

She trotted off, leaving Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow, Pinkie, Rarity, and a few curious townsponies to investigate the apparition.

Twilight coughed into a hoof. “Right. I suppose the first thing we should establish is what this… thing actually is.”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head at her. “You mean it’s not obvious?” she asked, incredulous.

Twilight frowned. “Er, no? At least, I don’t --”

“It’s gotta be some kind of ancient tomb or temple or whatever!” Dash said confidently. “I mean, just look at it! It’s the size of a huge building, and it’s made of, uh, some kind of stone? And it’s all carved up, look, it’s got runes or, or hieroglyphs or whatever.”

Twilight turned that thought over in her head. “Well, all of that appears to be true,” she admitted. “But there are a couple of flaws in that theory.”

“What?” Dash frowned. “Name ‘em!”

“First, I don’t recognize those carvings or this style of architecture from any known historical culture,” Twilight said.

“So it’s from an unknown historical culture! Duh,” Dash said, rolling her eyes.

“Second, if it’s a temple or a building… well, where’s the door?”

Rainbow paused, frowning. She zipped over to inspect between the claws of the thing, then around the other side. She shook her head, then started to fly towards the top of the edifice.

Rarity shook her head. “That mare,” she murmured. “Twilight?”

“Mm?”

“I do doubt Rainbow’s suggestion of this being a temple.”

“As do I,” Twilight agreed.

“However, I did notice something as she was speaking. She suggested that this thing was made of ‘some kind of stone’, and that made me consider more closely the building material.”

“...Is this goin’ somewhere?” Applejack asked.

Rarity arched an eyebrow at her. “Indeed. Riddle me this, darling, what color would you say that building actually is?”

Applejack scoffed. “Aw, c’mon Rares, just ‘cause Ah can’t tell the difference between ‘tan’ an’ ‘ecru’ or whatever --”

“No, just the most basic color you can see,” Rarity said.

“Uh.” Applejack squinted at the edifice. “Ah mean, um. It’s a bit, kinda… Ah guess… yellow-y?”

“But not yellow,” Rarity said. “I believe that this is a color never before seen by ponykind. I must get a sample to try and recreate! I’ll sell hundreds of dresses with something as nouvelle as this. Thousands! Suri Polomare, eat your heart out…”

She hurried forward. Twilight rubbed her chin. “I wonder,” she mused.

“Hey,” said Pinkie. “What’s going on over there?”

Twilight and Applejack turned their attention to where Pinkie pointed. At the side of the thing, Lily was yelling at a group of other ponies. “Repent! The time has come upon us! The obelisk calls upon us all to answer for our misdeeds, and we must follow its command!”

Twilight trotted over quickly. “What’s all this, then?” she asked. “Lily, what -- where did you even get that cloak?”

Lily drew the dark cloak tighter around herself. “I need not explain myself to a nonbeliever!” she hissed. “The obelisk commands only fear!”

“Sure,” Twilight said. “Along with rabbits, leaf rot, sudden noises, the Cutie Mark Crusaders --”

“Well, that last one’s fair,” somepony said from the crowd to whom Lily had been preaching.”

“Okay, bad example,” Twilight said. “But just because we don’t know what this is doesn’t mean we should fear it. We just need to study it and better understand it. That’s the root of science, the root of progress and the key to modern life. Blind fear of the unknown can only ever drag us backwards.”

As though to mark her words, a dolorous chime rang from the structure. Lily screamed and ran off, along with more than a few of her listeners.

Twilight glanced around and saw a figure standing at the side of the thing, watching it vibrate intently. She sighed and trotted closer. “Octavia,” she said by way of greeting. “What did you just do?”

The cellist looked at her in mild surprise. “Oh, Twilight, hello,” she said. “I was just testing a little idea I had about what this thing might be.”

“Which is…” Twilight prompted.

Octavia held up a tuning fork and struck it against the structure. Another tone sounded, this one a clear half-step lower than the first. Octavia smiled. “An instrument,” she said. “Look at it, so grand and smooth, with all those delicate carvings, and I thought there might be some acoustic reason for it. It seems I was right!”

“Why would anypony build an instrument this big?” Twilight asked.

Octavia considered this. “Perhaps it could serve as something akin to a bell tower,” she said. “It could be a way to broadcast a performance across a space of several square miles.”

“Interesting,” Twilight said, nodding. “You might be onto some --”

“Or,” Octavia said. “Perhaps the intended audience is simply too large to register any softer noise.”

“Never mind,” Twilight said flatly.

“Hey! Twi!”

Twilight found herself suddenly whisked away by a blue blur, then dropped unceremoniously next to Applejack, Pinkie, and Rarity. She hauled herself upright to see Rainbow Dash grinning broadly at her, almost vibrating in place. “So! Uh, update on the temple thing -- you’ll never guess what I found up there!”

Twilight perked up. More data on the higher levels of the object sounded very useful indeed. “Oh?”

“So there were these parallel bar-looking things in a hole that led from one side of the thing to the other, and a rope swing too, and really, this whole thing is kinda like a vertical climbing wall --”

“Okay…” Twilight said.

“So really, I think this is actually some ancient temple version of Equestrian Ninja Warrior, and I’m gonna beat it! Pinkie, time me!”

Pinkie saluted. “Aye aye, Dashie!”

“I --” Twilight began, but Rainbow was already scrabbling up the side of the object.

Applejack sighed. “Equestrian Ninja Warrior. Ah love that mare, but Ah don’t believe she’s got the sense she was born with.”

“I wasn’t going to say it, but yes,” Twilight said.

“Obviously it’s a cultivator,” Applejack continued.

Twilight sighed. “...Explain?”

“Evenly-spaced claws for producing nice parallel rows an’ avoidin’ the crops, lookin’ like they’d cut deep into the earth and rip up all the weeds,” Applejack said. “Nice long handle too, get some good leverage out of that thing.”

“But it’s too big for anypony to use!” Twilight protested.

Applejack shrugged. “A worm’d say the same ‘bout mah rototiller, but that ain’t ever stopped me from usin’ it.”

“And what would these giants you seem to be proposing use it on?” Twilight asked. “It looks almost big enough to plow up the ground in one of your orchards.”

“It does, at that,” Applejack said, studying it thoughtfully. “It most assuredly does…”

“Applejack,” Rarity scolded. “I cannot believe you’re thinking of using my fashion revolution for farmwork!”

“You just like th’ color!” Applejack said. “Or were you gonna make some dresses out of, uh… rock, Ah guess? Did we ever figure out what that thing’s made of?”

“That is the odd thing,” Rarity agreed. “It feels and looks like stone, but it seems to act almost like wood. When I broke a piece off, I could even see the grain of it.” She held out a piece. Indeed, the striation was clear.

Twilight shook her head. “Pinkie,” she said. “I think you’re the only one, aside from me, who hasn’t thrown out an idea for what this might be.”

Pinkie tilted her head, scrutinizing the thing closely. “...Backscratcher,” she said decisively.

“Thank you for your input,” Twilight replied.

“What about you?” Pinkie said. “What do you think it is, Twilight?”

“Well… I don’t like to speculate,” Twilight said.

“Everypony else is,” Pinkie replied. “Come on, it’s fun!”

“Well…” Twilight trailed off. “I think Dash had at least sort of a point about it belonging to some unknown ancient culture. Just looking at it, I can plainly see that it’s quite old, although I’d like to do some carbon dating to see exactly how old. I can see that it’s covered in some kind of writing as well. I think I almost recognize some of the characters, but together they don’t form any language I’m familiar with, and they all belong to entirely different alphabets. I see some ancient Camel hieroglyphs, as well as Zebra-based cuneiform and Minotaur script. That suggests to me that many cultures together worked on this artifact, or at least contributed some writing. Perhaps it’s akin to the Roansetta Stone, a sort of translation tool for multiple languages.”

Pinkie nodded approvingly at her, and Twilight grinned. She continued. “Combined with the size of it, and the acoustic nature, I’m inclined to take seriously Octavia’s comparison to a bell tower -- I suspect it was some kind of central structure in a city somewhere, designed to be a point of focus for the inhabitants. Clearly it was meant to convey important information to all readers, which could have been any creature from any culture. What that information could have been, I can’t know, but the first thing I can think to compare it to would be Hammulerabi’s Code, a collection of the laws of --”

As soon as she spoke the word ‘law’, the earth shook and the thing began to glow with a light that was hard to look at directly. “Behold!” Lily screamed “The end is upon us! All hail the obelisk! All hail!”

Rainbow flew down. “Twilight? What gives? Did somepony else beat me to the top of this thing?”

“The colorsss,” Rarity murmured, her eyes shining and reflecting the indescribable shade of light coming off the object. “Mmmm… I must have it… tie together my summer collection…” Her expression dreamy, she wandered closer to the light.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight said. “What set it off? Rainbow, you were the only one on it that I’m aware of, what were you doing when it… started doing whatever this is?”

“Just climbing the walls,” Rainbow said. “I don’t think I touched anything special… Oh! Wait! Is this some kind of bonus round?”

There came a great howl from where Lily stood, and where some ponies had come to stand behind her. “Look! There is a defiler!” she cried, pointing to where Rarity was attempting to hack another piece off the thing. “Tear her for her insolence!”

“Alright,” Twilight said, her mane lighting up with stars. “This has gone far enough.”

She charged toward where Lily and her followers were moving toward Rarity. “Stand down,” she roared, her words bypassing the ears and going straight through the spine. “Lay not one hoof on her, else face an alicorn’s wrath!”

Some of Lily’s followers quailed, but most stood strong. Lily’s eyes burned with a maddened intensity. “We have no fear of you, Twilight Sparkle! A new age is upon us, a new god! Let the alicorns be washed away by the Age of the Obelisk!”

Applejack stormed up to stand face to face with Lily. “One step closer, and you’ll be spittin’ teeth,” she growled.

Lily flinched. “I mean --” she said.

“And, you an’ yours won’t never get another mug of cider in this town so long as you live.” Applejack’s words were underscored by a dolorous tone as Octavia struck the thing once again.

The mob quickly scattered to the winds.

Twilight’s jaw hung open. “What?” she asked.

Applejack shrugged. “Gotta hit ‘em where it hurts, Twi.”

“I’m pretty sure that was a violation of the Godiva Convention, AJ” Rainbow said, shuddering.

“What is the meaning of this?” Mayor Mare demanded, storming over to where the mares stood. “I asked you to remove this thing, not make it do… this. Why is everything it does so hard to describe? It’s going to make the paperwork for this incident an absolute nightmare! And what was that angry mob here for?”

“They decided this radical obstacle course was some kind of god,” Rainbow said, rolling her eyes.

“Dash, this ain’t no obstacle course, it’s clearly a cultivator,” Applejack said.

“A thing that makes cults?” Dash scratched her head. “I mean, I guess that’s what happened with Lily…”

“IT’S BEAUTIFUL!” Rarity wailed. “IT’S BEAUTIFUL AND IMPOSSIBLE AND I WANT LACE IN EXACTLY THIS HUE!”

“It’s a public nuisance is what it is,” Mayor Mare said with a scowl.

“You authority figures just don’t know modern music when you hear it,” Octavia said with a sniff. “Only true artists can see this for what it really is.”

“MY SUMMER COLLECTION!” Rarity screamed.

“Backscratcher!” Pinkie piped in.

“Um,” said a voice from above. Everypony still standing there looked up to see Thunderlane peering down at them. “Sorry if this is a bad time, but, uh, I can see something in the crystal at the top of this thing? I dunno, it looks like it might be important.”

“Show me,” Twilight said, taking to the sky with a flap of her long, phantasmal wings.

She led the way to the top of the thing, Rainbow Dash and Thunderlane trailing in her wake. It was much farther to the top than she expected, and space seemed to bend as she flew, the object stretching like rubber as she flew onwards to the top.

Eventually, the three of them arrived at the top, hovering around the glowing crystal, staring at the symbol that sat in shadow at the center. “See?” Thunderlane said. “What do you think it means?”

Twilight stared at the eight-pointed arrow as it slowly spun in the core. “Dammit, Discord…”

It was some twenty minutes later. Both the object and Twilight had calmed dramatically, and Rarity had been lured from her death grip on the thing by Spike and a tub of cookie dough ice cream. The five available Elements now stood in a circle around a series of strange sigils Twilight had drawn on the ground, Rarity still shoveling ice cream into her mouth. Since Twilight claimed that what they were attempting would require thirteen participants, also in the circle stood Spike, Thunderlane, Mayor Mare, Big Macintosh, Caramel, Zecora, Cheerilee, and Octavia. Everyone besides Twilight looked at least moderately confused and mildly bored.

“Okay,” Twilight said, glancing back and forth a few more times between the Alicron and the summoning circle. “I think that’ll do it. Are all of you ready to begin the incantation?”

“Mm.” Applejack frowned. “Uh, Ah think so. But this dance thing… we gotta do all this on jes’ two legs?”

“I’m afraid it looks that way,” Twilight said. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Rituals like this tend to want to be finished when they’re started. So, you know, if you don’t feel completely in control of your body, uh, don’t worry about it?”

Applejack rubbed her forehead with a hoof. “Sure. Sure. Why in Tartarus would that worry me?”

When the thirteen townsponies had arranged themselves around the circle, Twilight began the chant. “Ay’i omphas-kai ti umph’sh tiralamena, Omph ka’ll’ra t’dish ay’i Discordia, Ay’i p’tah-ka Eris da’i sc’ena --”

And around the circle, the summoners danced, rhythmically moving their forehooves one after the other in perfect, unnatural synchronization -- out, out, flip, flip, up to the withers, up to the withers. The circle began to glow with a sickly, unnatural light that was of no color in a pony’s visible spectrum, and still they moved, unable to stop the dance as their hooves moved behind their heads, first the right, then the left. Then down to their hips, then their plots, as the world began to slide out of focus and Twilight continued the chant, drawing to the close of the first repetition. She threw back her head and howled, “Ay’i, MACARENA!”

Everypony rotated in place ninety degrees to the left as Twilight began to chant the verse again. As she repeated the dread invocation and the ponies danced on, the summoning circle began to expand, the land inside stretching out far beyond what could ever hope to be contained by its perimeter, billions on billions of shrieking squamous things oozing over the intricate designs of the circle as reality shredded itself on the rough cliffs of what was so very far beyond comprehension. The sky turned dark, then pale, then a kaleidoscope of dizzying rainbow hues that seemed to beckon the mind to fall forever toward the center of the universe.

And then there was a pop and a flash of smoke. Discord stood at the center of the circle, blinking in the light. They were wearing a quite stunning emerald evening gown. Tucked under their right arm was Fluttershy, who looked terribly confused. She was also wearing a very nice gown, rich blue and creamy white.

Discord blinked a couple of times, then scowled. “Alright, who’s the wise guy?” they asked, turning in a slow circle. “We were at a concert!”

“A concert?” Twilight repeated, perplexed.

“Oh, yes,” Fluttershy said. “Er. Hello, by the way. Discord got us two tickets to see the Unreality Wind Orchestra perform live. I’m sure we’ll make it back in time for the show, though. The curtain hasn’t gone up yet.”

“It could have done,” Discord grumbled. “So. Make it quick and make it good, or I’ll turn all of you into… I don’t know, something terribly ironic. Or pickles. Or melting clocks. Tickets to the Royal Azathoth Theater aren’t cheap, you know, especially for the non-gibbering section.”

“We found something which bears your mark,” said Twilight. “Care to explain what it is?”

“Ugh. Fine,” Discord grumbled. “Where is it?”

“Well, we’re currently standing in its shadow,” Mayor Mare said drily. “On that note, there are some forms which need to be filled out…”

Discord turned around and stared up at the colossal, indescribable artifact that nearly blotted out the sun with its grandeur. “Oh,” they said. “You found my backscratcher. I’d been wondering where that went.”

Every pair of eyes fell on Pinkie Pie. “See?” she said. “I told you.”

Discord sighed. “I suppose I should thank you for this,” they said reluctantly. “So… yeah. That thing I just said.”

Fluttershy coughed into her hoof.

Discord threw their head back and groaned. “Ffffine. Thank you. Can we go now?”

“Could you move it out of Ponyville first?” Mayor Mare asked.

“It can wait until after the concert,” Discord said dismissively.

“I’ll fill out all the required paperwork on your behalf if you do it now.”

“Deal,” they said immediately, the immense artifact vanishing in a cloud of sparkling mist that felt pink and smelled like thunder. “Is that everything?”

“I do have one more question, actually,” Twilight said. “What exactly was written on that thing?”

Discord paused. “Hm. Good question. It’s been ages since I really looked at it…”

They clicked their talons and a scrolling image of characters appeared before them. They peered at it closely. “According… to all… known… laws… of aviation… oh.”

Discord straightened up. “Er, yes. Great big secrets of the universe, not meant to be read or heard by mortals, I’m sure you understand. That’s all, then? Great, lovely to hear from you all, bye-byeeeee!”

And they disappeared alongside Fluttershy. The only sign they had been there was that the sigils which had been painted on the ground had been transformed into powdered sugar.

“Right,” said Applejack. “Well, now that’s over, Ah’d best be headed home. Ah got plans to draw up for a new cultivator…”

“Why would you want a cult?” Rainbow asked, flying after Applejack.

“Indeed. I have to start thinking about how to recreate this color as a dye...” Rarity said, hungrily eyeing the shards she’d managed to rip from the structure.

One by one, everypony dispersed from the marketplace. When all of them had gone, a mare peered around the corner of one of the market stalls and made her way to where the thing had stood. She climbed up on the wooden crate she had left there earlier. “Behold!” Lily cried. “The terrible indentation of doom! It can portend only evil and destruction!”

Going Through a Phase

“Cady?”

“Mm?”

Shining Armor trotted into his bedroom, where his wife was lying on the bed, paging through a novel. She set it down as he entered. “What’s the matter, Shiny? You look perplexed.”

“...You could say that,” Shining admitted. “I decided to go up to the attic --”

“This castle has an attic?”

“The upstairs storage rooms,” Shining amended. “I was looking for the baby toys Mom and Dad sent when Flurry was born, and I came across this one room that was just full of weird shit.”

Cadance frowned. “Merely weird, or really weird?”

“Well, there was a lot of copper,” Shining said. “Old and green copper, studded with blue and green gemstones. Armor -- probably ceremonial, seeing how weird the helmets looked, and there was this statue at the center.”

Cadance cringed. “Oh, don’t tell me -- was it a fish?”

“Maybe?” Shining hedged. “I thought it looked more like a snake, but there were fins, I think. You know what it is?”

Cadance sighed. “...Yeah,” she admitted. “Yeah, that’s… well, you remember how you felt when I came across the remains of your goth phase?”

Shining winced. “I thought we agreed to never mention that again,” he muttered.

“I thought you looked cute with all that mascara,” Cadance said. “But… yes, this is roughly the equivalent.”

“I don’t follow.”

Cadance tapped her hooves together. “Well, see, when you’re a god, sometimes you get… phases. Phases that you aren’t proud of, in hindsight.”

Shining stared at her blankly.

“I… may have started a mystery cult.” Cadance gave a tight grin.

“Oh,” Shining nodded. “I -- Hang on -- you had a fish cult? Why a fish cult? What do fish have to do with love?”

“It’s… complicated,” Cadance said. “And, um, slightly obscenely biological.”

“Well, now you have to tell me,” Shining said, taking a seat on the bed.

Cadance sighed and lay down next to him. “Well, see, there was this seapony, Lucida, and she fell in love with an earth pony prince. So she called to the forces of love to grant her the chance to be with him, and that’s me! That’s me, barely in my fourth century at the time, and I get this great idea to give her legs. And because magic like that needs a bit of equivalent exchange, I took her voice, just until she could get princey-boy’s attention.”

“Ouch. Not the first thing I’d have gone with if you’re trying to set her up for success.”

“Oh? What precisely do you think would have been better? Sight? Hearing? Mane?”

“I… alright, go on.”

“Well, thankfully it did work out in the end, and they got together and founded a new dynasty between the land and sea.”

“Well, that seems fine --”

“And then they had kids.”

“...Oh?”

“They were, how shall I put this, amphibious.”

“...Oh.”

“I mean, it’s all worked out okay in the end, their descendants are alive and thriving today, though the Kingdom of Innsmouth has lost its sovereign status some centuries ago, but I can’t show my face there without being hailed as the progenitor of a new pony subspecies.”

Shining let out a little ‘snrk’ of laughter.

“It’s not funny! They have a choir that they bring out whenever I pass through. Is it flattering? Yes. Is it good? Also yes. But it -- Shining Armor, stop laughing!”

Author's Note

Finally realized I never actually posted this one here, thought it might tide things over for a bit while I push through a nasty bit of writer's block.

The Shape of Outer Time

“Doctor?” Ditzy poked her head into the empty kitchen and frowned. It wasn’t often she finished with her mail route early, and she wanted to spend every spare moment with her beloved. Unfortunately, the Doctor was nowhere to be found. Ditzy had checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the parlor, and the TARDIS, all to no avail. There was only one place left to check before she would finally accept that the Doctor had gone to town, and she was left to languish on the couch, eating cookies and reading romance novels. With a sigh, she started down the stairs to the basement.

On the whole, it was quite a nice basement -- it was large, bright, and spacious, and one room had served as Dinky’s playroom when she had been younger. But as Ditzy went down the steps, she began to feel somewhat uneasy. The air seemed hazier than it should have been, and the walls seemed to shimmer under a strange light. Finally, she reached the base of the stairs and quietly opened the door a crack.

Peering through, she saw nothing unusual. The lights were on, though. Either the Doctor was down here, or he’d forgotten to turn out the lights when he’d left. She slipped by the door, letting it shut silently behind her. For a moment, she felt silly, sneaking around like that in her own home. Then she turned to the left and beheld a misshapen figure, easily twice the size of a normal pony, hunched over against the wall.

Ditzy stifled a scream, drawing back against the wall. The creature hesitated for a moment, but didn’t turn around.

Okay, Ditzy thought. Ohhh-kay. Fine. There’s a monster in my basement. I don’t know where the Doctor is. Fine. Gotta get out of the house, gotta get to the library, get Twilight and her friends, get Dinky from school so she doesn’t come home and find this. Okay.

She reached for the door. Unfortunately, she misjudged the distance and smacked her forehoof sharply against the knob. The creature spun around, startled. Ditzy screamed, more startled. The creature screamed, more startled yet.

After several seconds of this, they both fell silent, staring at one another. The creature looked bizarre-- tentacles sprouted forth from where its mane and tail would have been, and its flesh seemed to peel away to reveal great star-filled clouds of what looked like the cosmos itself. Galaxies twinkled in the depths of its eyes. Stranger still, with the remaining flesh that hung around the creature like wrapping paper, it looked… oddly familiar.

The creature opened its mouth. “...Ditzy?”

Ditzy blinked. “Doctor?”

The creature put a tentacle to the place where its mouth would have been. “Uh. Hm. You’re… home early, dear.”

“I-- you-- we-- what?”

The Doctor flinched. “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could convince you that this is the result of an accident with a perception filter? A bad dream, perhaps? Gas leak?”

“...No, I don’t think so,” Ditzy said carefully.

“Oh.” They shrunk back into themself. Literally. Ditzy watched in fascination as his body receded into itself like the tides. “I’m… sorry.”

“Oh! Oh no no no no!” Ditzy said quickly. “I can work with this.”

The Doctor paused. “You… you can?” A great yellow star located around where his eye should have been winked and twinkled.

“Oh, yes,” Ditzy said, pacing toward him. “I remember back in college, Carrot Top had this magazine that she hid under her mattress, all filled with tentacles and things, and lots of poor, innocent ponies wrapped up in their clutches…”

“I beg your pardon?”

“She was never any good at hiding it,” Ditzy mused. “As soon as I walked into the room, she’d slam-dunk it into a drawer…”

“Ditzy!” the Doctor said indignantly.

“And I’ve always been the curious type, you know.”

“It’s something I usually love about you, yes,” the Doctor said flatly.

“How ‘bout it, then?”

“Ditzy! Is that how you’re going to look at me from now on? A bunch of provocatively positioned tentacles in a dirty magazine?”

Her ears went flat against her head. She couldn’t get a good read on the Doctor’s emotions -- they didn’t really have much of a face at the moment -- but they sounded angry. Worse, they sounded hurt.

“Well, I mean, no, of course not!” Ditzy said, flustered.

“From the very start of this relationship, you knew I didn’t… don’t care for that sort of thing. Nothing changed when I told you I was asexual. I still am. I… you…” he broke off, flustered.

Ditzy looked down. “I’m sorry, Doctor. I was only teasing. I thought it might ease the tension.”

She still couldn’t read his face, but he gave off an air of distinct disapproval. She took a deep breath and let it out. “You’re right. This doesn’t change anything. I still love you, Doctor, just the way you are. Warts and all, you’re still my best friend.”

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, relaxing slightly. There was still a certain tension there, though.

Well, thought Ditzy. I can fix that.

“There is one thing, though,” she said casually. “Just a little curiosity about, you know, all this.”

“Oh?” said the Doctor, the tension growing slightly.

“Well, it’s a lot of different things, actually, like how many tentacles you have, and are they slimy or scaly or what, and what’s the deal with the big void inside of you, and how is it not sucking all the air right out of the room, but they all really come together into a central question.”

“Which is?” the Doctor said warily.

“How good is this body at cuddling?”

There was a beat of absolute silence. Then, “Cuddling?” the Doctor said, life coming back into their voice. “You see me, all tentacles and empty spaces and stars, and you wonder how good I am at cuddling? Oh, Ditzy Doo. Oh, Ditzy, it is on!” He struck a pose, thrusting Orion’s belt forward and pointing to her with several tentacles and hooves all at once. “Prepare yourself for the snuggle of a lifetime!”

One tendril darted out, and Ditzy squealed in surprise. It came to a stop right in front of her face. Then slowly, delicately, the tip unrolled the last few inches and tapped her right on the nose. “Boop!” the Doctor said.

Ditzy grinned as the tentacle brushed against her cheek. It felt cool and airy against her coat, almost as intangible as a spring breeze. On a whim, she grabbed it and held it to her face, rubbing against it like a cat. Immediately, it became more solid, warmer, smoother. It wasn’t slimy, like she imagined it would have been. It wasn’t scaly and dry like a snake, either. It was like… like…

“I’ve heard it described variously as ‘glass come to life,’ ‘an elephant’s trunk but smooth,’ and ‘the union of a non-newtonian fluid and a non-newtonian solid’,” the Doctor said cheerfully.

“Are you reading my mind?”

“Well, if you’ll observe, I no longer actually have a mouth.” Ditzy glanced over. Indeed, the Doctor’s face was gone, as was most of his body. Only a few patches of tan coat remained on the cloudy patch of space stuck together in the vague shape of a pony. And, of course, there was the necktie.

“So really, the only way I’ve got to communicate is telepathically.” They paused. “Is that alright?”

“Yes,” Ditzy thought back. “But… just surface-level stuff, alright?”

The feeling of a smile blossomed in her mind. “Of course, love.”

Ditzy became aware of more tentacles brushing over her, toying with her hair, rubbing her back, twining around her hooves all at the same time. She felt herself going limp as every muscle in her body was massaged all at once from every angle she could think of, and then some.

“...Right. At this point, all I’m really hearing on the surface level is, er, I think you’d call it ‘purring’. I take it you’re quite relaxed?”

“Mmm, mhm.”

“Ready to move on to the snugglefest?”

“This isn’t it?”

“Course not! This is just to get you warmed up.”

“Well… alright then. I’m ready.”

“Molto bene!”

Suddenly, all the tentacles paused. Ditzy nearly fell over, but several of them caught her as she went. And then several more wrapped around her barrel. And then a few bound her hooves, her legs, her neck… until she was completely swaddled in tentacles of varying degrees of tangibility. Though they covered her mouth and nose, she could breathe comfortably. Though they covered her eyes, she could still see clearly. Though they bound her hooves… she shifted slightly, and the tentacles curled and furled around her, adjusting to her new position.

The tightness was still there, wrapping around her like a snug blanket, but it never seemed to tighten or loosen as she breathed. “Some kind of quantum motion,” she guessed. “Tunneling, maybe? Or just uncertainty as to where your limbs are in all this tangle.”

“Time Lord,” the Doctor said cheekily.

Correction -- the tightness wrapped around her like a smug blanket.

“Oi!” said the Doctor.

Ditzy giggled, and after a minute, the Doctor did too. “Alright. Next phase, Ditzy Doo. I’m a-reelin’ you in!”

Ditzy twisted around to take a look at the Doctor. His fur, his skin had completely peeled away, revealing an enormous cloud of what could really only be called outer space. It looked like they were getting bigger. But no, Ditzy thought, he’s just pulling me closer.

She watched as the Doctor grew ever nearer, ever larger. Okay, she thought. Maybe he’s getting closer and getting bigger.

And then the cloud was upon her. She blinked in the purple haze as several things happened at once. Gravity released its hold on her, and the last tensions were forcibly evicted from her body. Every one of the tentacles became transparent. A faint, double-beat became audible, echoing in the distance. Ditzy noticed almost none of this, because the stars had come out to play.

They burned bright in the skies above -- without being obscured by an atmosphere, they didn’t twinkle or glimmer. But she could see more stars than she had in her life. Galaxies spun through the void, great clouds of space dust glittered with reflected and refracted light, and stranger things besides flew past Ditzy’s eyes as she lay in stunned silence, taking in the magnificent cosmic ballet.

“You like it?”

“...”

“Ditzy? Are you alright?”

“Oh, I’m better than alright, Doctor.”

“Gorgeous, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Ditzy paused. “Wait, is this the actual universe, or just… you?”

“Little of both. It’s everywhere I’ve been, everything I’ve seen, everyone I’ve known. A man is only as much as the sum of his memories. A Time Lord even more so.”

Neither of them said anything for awhile after that -- the stars spun in the heavens above, below, beside. Perhaps billions of years went by as Ditzy floated there. Perhaps it was mere minutes. Ironically, time seemed not to have any meaning cozied up this close to her favorite Time Lord.

She could barely feel anything. Had she blinked once this whole time? Had she been breathing? She was more relaxed than she’d been in her entire life, not even conscious of her own body. She had transcended. The only thing she could feel now was a powerful sense of love, deep and rich and all-encompassing, wrapping around her like the Doctor’s tendrils.

And then she became aware of something else. Another presence in the great cosmic majesty of the Doctor. She twisted around, the tentacles shifting through four or five dimensions to accommodate her motion, and stared out toward the source of the sensation she was feeling, a pair of overlapping rhythms that beat in a four-note pattern.

Two vast planets orbited one another, binary twins sharing a dance. “Your hearts?” Ditzy guessed. Her voice sounded croaky and dusty from disuse.

“Got it in one,” the Doctor said. “Every story I’ve ever known is written across the two of them. Go ahead, touch the left one.”

“But they’re so far away!”

“Size and distance are very flexible in this state,” the Doctor said.

“Oh. Bigger on the inside.”

“Ha! Yes, I suppose that’s a way of putting it. Go on, try it. The blue one.”

“Well, alright,” Ditzy said, reaching out a hoof. And reaching. And reaching. Her hoof seemed to be miles and miles away…

She blinked, and her leg was back to its usual size, and the planets were floating in front of her, only as big as grapefruits. She touched the blue one, and suddenly

she was sitting in an apartment, wearing a silly paper crown, laughing and cheering with a young blonde and her mother and her friend and

she was arguing with a brunette in a loud shirt about plants and then she smiled and tapped Peri lightly on the nose and

she was on the beach with a strapping Scot and a tiny sparkly genius, building a sandcastle and

she was in the TARDIS with her granddaughter, setting a course for anywhere and anywhen brand new and

the planet moved away from her hoof. She pulled back quickly. “Wow,” said Ditzy. “That was incredible!”

“Well, I like to think so,” the Doctor demurred. “Now, just wait until you see my brain…”

“Hold on,” Ditzy said, reaching out. “I haven’t touched the other one yet.”

“What? No, don’t tou

she flinched back as the young Space Security Service agent was aged to dust in front of her eyes, screaming as her flesh turned wrinkled, withered, and finally disintegrated, and

she watched, helpless, as the spaceship fell to earth, on a direct collision course for the dinosaurs, manned by only one small boy who would never know if he was right and

she stared numbly up at the screen, unable to connect it with reality, surrounded by her own people and they… killed… Peri… and…

she reached out for the big red button that would end it all, and hoped like hell that she was included in ‘all’, and

ch that!” the Doctor shouted, pulling her backwards. “Ditzy! Ditzy, are you alright?”

She took a deep breath to steady herself. “Are you?”

Dead silence. “I…”

“Doctor, it’s okay,” Ditzy said, petting one of the most convenient tentacles. “I’m fine, now. But… I only had those memories for less than a second, and you have to live with them. So… are you okay?”

“Ditzy,” they said, sounding suddenly very weary, “these are memories I’ve had for hundreds, in some cases thousands of years. I’ve carried them along pretty well all that time. There’s an old Time Lord saying -- ‘Two hearts: One to love, and one to harden’. I’ve stuck to that one pretty well, and it’s gotten me through so far.”

“There’s a big difference between that and being okay.”

A long pause. “...No. Of course I’m not okay. You saw a fraction of a percent of my worst memories, Ditzy, and even that was… a lot.”

“I want to help.”

“That’s very noble of you, but--”

“I’m going to help you.”

“...Ditzy, I’m a Time Lord.”

“And I’m your wife! Let me help, or you’re sleeping on the couch for a week.”

His tentacles tensed. “Yes, dear.”

“I need to touch your hearts again.”

“What? But--”

“Doctor.”

He fell silent and she softened. “I won’t do it if you truly don’t want me to. But don’t say no for my sake. I’m pretty strong, you know. I can handle some bad memories.”

They were silent for a long moment after that. Then, slowly, Ditzy felt herself moving toward the two hearts again. Soon enough, they were close enough to touch, red and blue chasing each others tails. She took a deep breath, reached out with both hooves, and touch

she cradled her granddaughter’s head in her lap, singing soft songs about orange skies and silver trees that they both missed so deeply

she stepped out into the bright suns of her homeworld for the first time in three lives, clad in the robes of the president

she sat with Nyssa and Tegan for the first time since they had lost Adric, none of them speaking, all of them sipping tea and trying to heal

she watched a pretty blonde girl running toward the TARDIS in the dead of night, running towards her, and she felt the damage of the War heal just that little bit more

ed both at the same time. And they moved away again.

“Oh,” said the Doctor, softly. And then,

“I’d nearly forgotten,” he said. And then,

“Thank you,” they said.

Ditzy smiled. “You’re welcome.”

They stayed like that for an indefinite amount of time, Ditzy resting safe and relaxed in the Doctor’s coils, watching their hearts chase each other around. But now, she thought, each one was a little closer to purple than they had been before, a little more balanced.

And they would’ve stayed like that all day if the front door hadn’t crashed open. “Mom! Doctor! I’m home!” Dinky cried.

Ditzy tensed. “So, um, how long does it take for you to turn back into, like, a regular-looking pony?”

The tentacles were already shooting her back out into the basement. “Go! Go go go go, keep her distracted!”

“Mom?”

Ditzy fell to the carpeted floor. “Just a minute, honey!”

“Mom? Why are you in the basement?”

Ditzy rolled over and popped up onto her hooves as she heard Dinky coming down the stairs. The Doctor was frantically reweaving his body back together. She shoved open the door and stepped through, blocking her daughter’s path down. “The Doctor and I were fixing a blown fuse,” she lied smoothly. “It’s nearly done now. Let’s go and get you a nice muffin and get started on your homework, hm?”

“I finished it in class. Are you alright? You look kinda… mussed.”

Ditzy smoothed down her hair. “I may have gotten slightly electrocuted. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Uh, no. Your mane isn’t even singed. What’s going on?”

“Nothing to worry about,” said a voice from the other side of the door. “Everything’s fine!” The door flew open, and an orange earth pony mare with a short blonde mane and the Doctor’s necktie smiled at the pair of them, wild-eyed and slightly panicked. “Er, perhaps I’d better explain over muffins. Or, actually, biscuits. Could murder a biscuit right now. C’mon, fam!”

The Doctor pushed past them both and hurried up the stairs. Dinky blinked. “So… do I have two moms now?”

“I think that might be a better question to ask the Doctor, don’t you?” Ditzy smiled. “After all this time, they’re still full of surprises.”

Author's Note

This chapter was written as part of Fandom Aspec Challenge 2019, which this year had the theme 'trope inversion'. To celebrate Ace Awareness Week, why not go and check out the Ao3 collection here?