The Lord Of Ragnarok

Chapter 32: Hearth’s Warming Part 2

Temple of Celestia Sol - Labatory - Morning Glory’s P.O.V.

I felt odd, a little unsettled, and certainly not the immense amount of pain I had been in. The last I could really remember I had been at the landing pad when the rocket took off. Some small part of me believed that the control center was designed to withstand a rocket taking off, and in truth it had been, but that was well before the war. The control center had two hundred years of neglect, rust, and failing enchantments. The fact that it lasted about two seconds into the take off of the rocket was a testament to the ponies that designed it.

The fact that I made it into a closet, one where I still burned, but at least wasn’t turned to ash was even more proof that the ponies that built it had been some of the best engineers that ever graced the prewar Equestria. Instead my body felt whole, I felt whole, and I felt weak. I secretly wondered if Blackjack, or somepony else, had managed to get a blank made of me and then a transfer. I know that there were rumors that a pony could imprint themselves into the Single Pegasus Project, but I had thought that those rumors were just that, rumors and nothing more.

But if it was possible for the Single Pegasus Project to take a full imprint of a pony then it would be possible to transfer a pony’s entire mind to a new body. But what about their soul? For a moment I felt worried, was I just the mind of Morning Glory in a body? Was my soul lost? If it was, then what was I going to do? There was no telling if I would be loyal, moral, or even sane! I wanted to cry. I lifted my forehooves and saw those hand things like Blackjack had on her robotic limbs.

I could hear somepony screaming, and it took several moments to realize that it was me. I tried to calm down, but looking at the hands at the end of my forelegs was freaking me out! What was I going to do?! What could I do?! I hugged my forelegs to my barrel and I felt my teats, but they’d moved! They moved and they were bigger! I looked down to see them, both shaped like little mounds. Tiny dots adored the dtop of them, nipples. I knew that much, I’d seen and read about some of the other creatures to know what they were.

So, I had nipples on my teats, and more specifically they were on my barrel. I looked further down and I could see my flank. It was shaped differently, and my hind legs were shaped differently. If I was to trot like a normal pony it would look as if I was presenting to anypony that came around! This was insane, this was beyond insane, and for some reason I felt that it had everything to do with Blackjack!

A pony can’t help who they fall in love with. I fell in love with Blackjack because she was a good and decent pony. She was pulled in two different directions, but at the same time she did what she felt was right. I’d seen her stand against raiders again and again just to protect a few ponies that likely would attempt to claim a bounty on her. At the same time I’d seen her completely wreck a settlement just because she was completely drunk, or she thought that somepony there had attacked them first. She could be unhinged, but all in all she really was a good pony.

There was a sort of kind nature to her that I couldn’t explain, and I loved that about her. I loved that she was so ready, and willing, to sacrifice everything to protect others. In truth, she truly did represent what it was that she was supposed to have become in her stable. She was security. She was the very definition of Security, and I felt safe around her most of the time. Oh, there were times that I was scared for my very life, but most of that was due to the wasteland itself.

The wasteland tended to be the kind of place that swallowed ponies up and spat them back out. Hoofington was one of the worst places for it. It was seductive in what it wanted to do, and it practically presented treasures to ponies to lure them in. Once that happened it ended them. I wondered if that was something that happened only after the war, or had Hoofington always been like that? Had it been the kind of place that simply drew ponies in only to kill them off later?

Which, was I in Hoofington? I looked around the area, but all I could see were stone walls. The building was so unlike any that I’d seen in the wasteland I had doubts that I was there. So, where was I? To look at the walls they seemed close to the palace in Canterlot. That would have been impossible though. The Canterlot Palace was in the middle of the Pink Cloud. Everypony knew that it was a highly necromantic spell, one that worked just as fast as the enovation around the core. It would kill a pony in minutes if they were out in it.

Of course some of the military ponies believed that there could be pockets of cloud free places in some of the sturdier buildings. There had been proposals to go into Canterlot, explore the more intact buildings, and gather what resources that could be found. It certainly wasn’t a terrible idea. Afterall a pony could potentially get more than enough advanced technology to keep much of Thunderhead’s systems in operation for years.

But nopony would sign off on it. I knew that my father wanted to lead one of the expeditions there. He believed that it would be a perfect opportunity to find everything that we could ever need or use. There was even rumored to be an entire lab in the school filled with bottled spells. Bottles that would allow any pegasus to perform spells like a unicorn. Well, rather it would allow a pegasus to throw the bottle, bust it open, and release the spell.

Still, if this was the palace, and this was Canterlot, then that meant that there was a possibility that everything outside of this room was death. I wanted to curl up on myself and just will myself to not be seen. And the moment those thoughts crossed my mind I suddenly hated myself a little more. Blackjack had found me like that. Scared out of my mind, hiding under the flooring of a broadcasting tower, praying to not be seen and just be allowed to starve to death.

I had been no more than a few hooves away from the skeleton of a pegasus that at least tried to get innocent foals saved. I heard the door, and I looked to see a figure. There was a faint green glow that illuminated the room. Even though I couldn’t see the figure’s face I could see an outline. From what I could see the figure was masculine, and there was burns all over his neck. I could understand how badly that would hurt. The burns seemed to be in shapes, almost in lettering, and it covered so much of him.

His mane had streaks of gray in it, but otherwise it was dark, and I could see that an eye had been replaced with a crystal. He stepped forward, looked toward me, and I swallowed the nervousness I had. I was scared, and I knew that while I was scared I was useless. There was no getting around the fact that I was more or less worthless when I was frightened. In addition I was nude, and I had to hope that he was a good sort. The idea that he could force me, at this point and time, to rut like a feral beast wasn’t beyond my understanding.

A flash of that thought crossed my mind. Him forcing my muzzle into the hard table I was on, my hips in the air, and his fun bits slammed hard inside of me. The image scared me, and at the same time it bothered me that I even thought of it at all. Could it be that I had been with Blackjack for so long that I just began to pick up on things like that ? Had I become comfortable enough with myself to accept that I had kinks?

Oh, I did not want Dusk to know that I had kinks. She was the kind of pony that would tease me until the sun burned out in the sky about it. I could see her telling me that I was depraved. She would tell me that the fact that I even considered that kind of thing meant that I was truly a lost cause. Her words had always hurt, no matter when she said them, and they still did. I watched as he neared me, and I prayed that he didn’t do anything.

“I see that you’ve awakened,” he said, his voice carrying a sweet baritone that reminded me of P21, “From what I can see it looks like you’ve recovered.”

I studied him, “Are, are we in Canterlot?”

He grinned, “That is a very good guess,” he said as he motioned toward the lab itself, “I modeled part of this area from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

I watched as he looked around it, “The lab itself was designed after the magical labs that Twilight Sparkle would have learned the bare beginnings of potion making.”

I looked in awe at the room, “I spent hours,” he said as he looked around, “Determining the placement of each stone. I spent days designing the vats, the magical systems, all of it meant to be a faithful reproduction of what Twilight had used.”

He turned back toward me and gave a slight bow, “Sorry,” he said before he moved close enough that I could see the withered part of his face, “It’s not often that I get to tell others about what we had done here.”

He grinned at me, and held out something. I looked and realized that it was a simple set of clothes. It almost looked like a flight suit, and I prepared to put a single wing through it before I felt them both. My wings! I had my wings back! I wanted to jump and scream with Joy! Instead I took the offered clothes, and I began to pull them on. After a moment I stood, and I felt uneasy. He helped me, allowing me to lean against him as I tried to stand by myself.

The world seemed to spin. It was odd to stand on my hind legs, but it also felt natural. The biggest problem was that it felt like I had lost a ton of blood. He gently rubbed my arm, allowing me to stand where I was, and I looked at him after a moment. There was a gentle smile, something that seemed to be disarming about him.

“Trust me, you’re doing far better than I would believe someone that’s recently been raised from the dead to be doing.”

My eyes widened at that. I felt like I was going to collapse all over again. Raised from the dead? I had died? So, I didn’t survive, but if I had been raised from the dead then how did it happen? He smiled at me, again it was gentle, and he led me out of the lab. The hall was similar in the way the stonework resembled a great long hall in an ancient castle. But as we worked the stonework began to change.

It was almost seamless in how it changed. The blocks went from gray to white, brick shaped to more elongated, and each one seemed to be cut in such a way that it took up the place of two of the other stones. I was no great baston of Earth Pony ingenuity, but I could see how well this had been planned and designed. The hall moved toward a large room, huge in its implementation, and all around me were tables. Candles floated in the air, giving light that filled the room, and I could see a few maids working in the far corner.

“Lord Mannulus,” one said as she moved toward us, “A new guest?”

He nodded, “She is a friend of Lady Blackjack’s, and thus she shall be allowed to stay as long as she wishes.”

The maid, which I realized seemed to be almost translucent, bowed before him. She gave me a smile and I could see something inside of her. It was a strange core, a sort of pulsating purple sphere. I stopped staring after a moment, and I returned the smile.

“Thank you,” I said softly, “Umm, did you say Lady Blackjack?”

He nodded, “She has earned the title.”

Somehow, that made me want to laugh. The last time that Blackjack had been referred to as Lady Blackjack had been with the Society. She had more or less became the heir, and in doing so set up a new rule. It had been both incredibly idiotic and brilliant what she did. She couldn’t simply wait around for anypony else to take over what she had been doing, so instead she put the ponies she believed the best option in charge and left.

I knew that she hated be referred to as Lady Blackjack. She certainly didn’t like being reminded that she was technically the leader of the Society, and she certainly didn’t like being referred to as a queen. I could remember how she wanted to put as much space between herself and the Society as she possibly could. For the longest time I tried to understand it, and the closest that I could really come was that she felt it was too close to what her Overmare had been.

It gave me some understanding. That wasn’t to say that I perfectly understood. I didn’t. I didn’t even really come close to completely understanding it, but then I didn’t always completely understand Blackjack. Her life before she came out of the stable had been one that seemed so foreign to me. Mares were encouraged to have same sex relationships, but at the same time they were expected to be put on a breeding rotation. The reason they were put on the breeding rotation was to have a foal of their own.

The stallions had no choice, and they were treated no better than equipment. The stallions mostly would never know their foals. The only foals they would ever come to know where the other colts that were taken from their mothers and put into the breeding program. They had no choice, no other reason for existing, and they simply went about their days breeding with every mare on their que. It didn’t matter if they felt like it or not. It didn’t matter if they even liked mares in that way. They had a job to do, and they were expected to do it, or they would face severe punishment. P21 had explained it to me, in grueling detail, when I wanted to understand Blackjack.

He couldn’t exactly explain why she was the way she was. Afterall, he said what I had come to accept as truth. Blackjack herself was beyond explanation. She was the product of her environment, absolutely, but she was also attempting to become more. I still wasn’t sure how she managed to survive for so long while she was being pulled in to different directions.

I suppose that she survived because she had a duty she believed in. She had something she felt was her purpose, and she was determined to see it through to the end. It was the only thing that really made sense. I tried to really understand all of this, every bit of it, right up until I saw her. She was wearing her security barding, just like she had been when I met her. I saw her, and I felt a familiar wave of emotion hit me. She was standing there, her back to me, the yellow ninety-nine facing me, and I could hear her laughing.

I felt everything hit at once, relief, happiness, love, horniness, anger, rage, every single bit of it, and I couldn’t help it. I tried to move faster, to run, but I found myself still wobbly. The one that helped me seemed to understand, and he led me closer.

“Blackjack?”

I could see the reaction. Her entire body tensed, and a moment later she turned around. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but to suddenly have her magic, followed by her arms, wrap around me, her shower me with kisses, and sobbing and laughing at the same time weren’t exactly it. She was crying and laughing, as if she had completely lost her mind. In a way I supposed that it made sense. No, it made perfect sense, because I began doing the same thing. I hugged her as close as I could, crying into her shoulder, laughing, loving that we were holding each other again.

“Glory!” she shouted, “Glory! Glory! Glory!” she kept shouting my name, almost as if that was all she really could say anymore.

I felt the same, holding her, my wings folded in, and I simply enjoyed the moment we were sharing. I loved the feeling of being with her. I loved the moment of pure happiness that I had found with her. And I didn’t want it to end. Somewhere, the scientist in me, the doctor in me, reminded me that everything ends. Eventually it is time that kills everything. The movement of time clicks away at our lives, at everything’s lives, and does it so slowly that they don’t even realize that they’re dying.

Even ghouls face the eventual death due to time. Maybe it takes years, decades, centuries, or even millenia, but time kills everything. I mentally grabbed that part of my mind, right by her uptight flank, her snooty little muzzle, and I flung her into a closet in my mind. Following Blackjack’s example I locked the closet, dug a hole, dumped it into the hold, filled the hole with cement, then I built a house over the hole. I didn’t stop there. I built a bunch of houses around that house, and then I proceeded to build an entire protective grid around the neighborhood. That snooty little cloud humper that tried to make me all depressed could rot in that closet.

I was with Blackjack, and everything would be okay. It would be fine because I knew that Blackjack would make sure that it was okay. She wouldn’t just let me suffer. I was safe when I was with her. I knew that I was safe. I knew that as long as I remained by her side everything would be okay. I wanted it to be, and I had faith that it would be.

The Temple of Celestia Sol - The Great Hall - Blackjack’s P.O.V.

It was Glory! Somehow, someway Glory was alive, and I was holding her! I felt each tear as she wept, I felt her lithe body as she pressed against me, and I felt the unbridled joy that welled up inside of me. I wasn’t sure why it happened, but I was sure of how it happened. I looked at Mannulus, Lord Mannulus, and I gave a tearful nod. He had brought her back to me. He’d given me mom, and now he gave me Glory! I wasn’t sure what I was going to do to repay this, but whatever it was that he wanted, whatever he asked, it would never be enough. It couldn’t be enough to repay this kindness.

I held Glory for what felt like an eternity and far too short of a time all mixed together. I had lost hope that I would ever see her again. I had completely lost all hope that we would be together again. I couldn’t begin to explain how wonderful it was to simply hold her, and I wasn’t going to. I never claimed to be a smart pony, and I never claimed that I was well spoken. Typically I just went and did things. I tried to save ponies, I tried to be a good security mare, but speaking either intimately or publicly wasn’t something that I was exceptionally good at.

Instead I resided myself to hold Glory for as long as I could, and then I felt another body. I knew it, the feel of it, the shape of it, and the feel of the magic. I wasn’t going to deny that Clop and I had become close. We weren’t each other’s special someponies, and we knew that. We were friends, good friends, and mostly friends with benefits, but over the course of time that I’d been here that had changed. I’d felt our relationship develop into something more. We weren’t just going at each other, and we weren’t just enjoying a good romp.

We had become closer, and now I began to wonder how this would turn out. I wanted Glory, and I would be with Glory. At the same time I didn’t want to be apart from Clop. Did I really want to form a herd? If I did then we needed to get a willing buck. Sure, getting a little bit of a fake cock up an ass was fine, but it was nothing compared to a real one. I nice, juicy, thick, and wonderfully active piece of stallionhood that knew all of the right places to touch.

By Luna I missed P21. I didn’t want to bring him here, not when he would eventually be reunited with Scotchtape, but I did miss him. I’d be a lying mare if I said that I didn’t miss the way that he could play me like a cello. No, I missed that. I missed the way his expert hooves moved, the way he felt when he pressed against me. It wasn’t just random humping, but it was nice. He went the extra mile to make it wonderful, and I wondered how much of that had been from ninety-nine.

It took forever for me to realize what it had been like for him. How he had to deal with the pain and torment of what happened to him on a daily basis, and I wouldn’t ever want to have him go through that again. If anypony ever, and I ment ever, deserved to have a peaceful existence it was P21. I wanted him to exist where he was, safe, no longer able to hurt, and waiting for the day that Scotch would join him. I figured that I would be stuck here, but that wasn’t so bad.

I had Mom and Glory with me, and I had Clop and the rest of her friends that had become my own. I took in a slight smell and I enjoyed the faint smell of rain coming off of Glory. Whatever happened from here on out, whatever I went on to do, I knew that in my heart it would be better. It had to be better. From this point on the only way was up, and I planned on making sure that we made it up as far as we could.

We finally broke apart, and I could see the look in my Glory’s eyes, but it was a slight cough that caught our attention. I looked at Clop who had a smile on her muzzle.

“Guessin’ you’re Glory, right?” she asked, the smile never dulling, “Name's Clopmaniac, chuffed tae catch up wi` ye!”

Glory looked at her for a moment, “Ummm, you sound kind of like Strumpets, and I’m Morning Glory, yes.”

I watched as Clop held out her hand, took Morning’s hand into her own, and brought her over into a tight hug, “Glad tae catch up wi` ye, 'n' a'm sure we ur gonnae be best mukkers, if nae bugger buddies, by week's end.”

I could see the confusion on Glory’s face as she nodded, gave a slight smile, and looked at me like I had anything to say. I knew that I should step in. I certainly knew what Clop was saying, and I had no doubt that she would hold to it. I was also sure that Glory wouldn’t hate it either. For all of the things that Clop was unskilled wasn’t one of them.

“I’m sure that we’ll all get along fine,” I said hoping that I made Glory feel a little better, “So, why don’t we take you around and show you the temple, and oh, you’ve got to meet Mom!”

That was something I did want to do. I wanted Glory to meet Mom. Although I knew that Mom would likely want to interrogate her a little bit. She would because she would believe that Glory had known more than she let on. Maybe she had, but I wanted to believe that my Glory honestly was trying to make things better.

Temple of Celestia Sol - Great Hall - Clopmaniac’s P.O.V.

A wullnae lie. Whin Mornin' Glory latched onto Blackjack ah wis worried. Worried 'n' nervous. Discord hud given me something that ah wantit, 'n' badly. We weren't exclusive lovers, bit we wur damned guid mukkers, 'n' ah wis worried that wi' Mornin' Glory 'ere we wouldn't be anymair. Instead, whin ah hugged thaim baith ah felt something mair. We wur a herd, a group o' mukkers that wur mair, 'n' ah coudnae be happier.

'twas aff tae be interesting, tae say th' least, bit then ah wasn't sure whin ah didnae dae something that wis a bawherr glaikit mixed wi' an insane amount o' luck. Hopefully that luck wid haud oot, 'n' ah wid be mony mair Hearth's Warmings wi' mah twa herdmates.

Author's Note

(Well, it's been a while, not going to lie, but here's another chapter. There will be one more Hearth's Warming Chapter, and then the story will be getting close to finishing. Thanks to everyone that's followed, favorited, and commented on the story, all of you are awesome!)