thenearshore | Cookies for Heaven

Entry tags:

Cookies for Heaven

Who: Princess Celestia
When: October 14-21st
Where: All around the Far Shore
What: Princess Celestia brings cookies and, perhaps more importantly, wellness checks to the temples of the Far Shore.

Two things circled each other in Celestia's mind, forming a taijutu symbol in the way each completed the other: A lot of people in the Far Shore really needed some personal attention, friendship, and care; and she had, thanks to practice and effort, gotten quite good at baking cookies.

So each morning, Celestia cheerfully moved dough into her oven on sheet after sheet, the entire kitchen in Inti's temple animated in golden light like Merlin himself had set it all to baking-- and each afternoon, Celestia took wing above the Far Shore, traveling from temple to temple to seek out the inhabitants therein.

So at some point, an alicorn will come knocking at your door, with a bright smile on her face and a basket of cookies floating by her side.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There are dragons around?

[ Naturally that's the only part he took from this. ]

Cool.

I have met one in the Far Shore, who was a shinki. In Equestria, they are not common, but they often pass through and can occasionally be found living or resting in more isolated areas suited to them. And we even have a baby dragon as a citizen.

[Celestia is quite happy to let the conversation ramble as it will. She is interested in others, and has no problem with them being interested in her or her history as well.]

[ Given that she met with a shinki, it's not as if he really had a lot to share in return, after all. It's fine, though. Dragons seem cool. Baby ones not as much, but it's kind of a bummer that he missed the one that had been here. ]

So if they're usually passing through or staying somewhere isolated... Do you have one as a slave for the fire? Pony world got dark.

[ Okay, maybe he doesn't have to share much to make it clear what kind of world he came from. ]

That would be dark. [Yes, she most definitely thinks that thought says volumes about his world and his expectations, even as she lets them roll off her with no visible change to her actions or demeanor.] But quite the opposite. I raised Spike from an egg, and now he lives with Princess Twilight Sparkle as her assistant and dear friend.

Is that how they spin it? Guess it keeps things in check.

[ It might be more than just being from a world where slavery wasn't atypical. Judar was more twisted than some, just with how he's ended up. In some ways, more than changelings. (He's less likely to turn over a new leaf, to that kind of degree, after all.) After all, he doesn't look for or expect love in anything, much less want to get any.

Are you starting to regret this trip yet, Celestia? ]

[Celestia does not know regret, even as she understands that Equestria is quite unlike many human worlds. But neither does she intend to allow such misconceptions to stand without challenge.]

'Spin' has nothing to do with it. Spike has been with her through great challenge and great triumph.

Yeah, so you raise someone that could be seen as useful from birth, and they can happily go along with what's wanted. Challenge, triumph and whatever else.

[ There was something inside that twisted and festered in anger towards the idea. It's what secured him deeply in his 'darkness' or Depravity, though he doesn't think on why the whole concept gives him that idea or reaction. ]

By that logic, raising anypony to care about others, be kind to them, and want to help and aid them is 'raising somepony who could be useful to happily go along with what's wanted'. But in the end, nopony benefits unduly, and everypony benefits more than were they all purely selfish and self-interested. Is that 'dark'?

[Celestia will debate this on its merits for now. She's dealt with worse by far. Cynical as this colt may be, he's no Discord.]

[ No, he really wasn't a Discord.

He was a Spike, essentially. Not that he remembers it. It's just left him with that kind of taste in his mouth. ]

Part of that depends on how you got the egg. Raising something because it'd be handy to send letters back and forth and for the purpose of being some princess's assistant, wanting to do so happily for acceptance and friendship? Yeah. I count brainwashing, or whatever kind of manipulation one would call it, as kind of dark.

We found it, actually. For whatever reason, its parents had left it behind. I imagine something must have become of them... Dragons are not normally so faithless to their children. [The thought saddens her, though not greatly; she's considered it a number of times over the years, after all.] In truth, I thought for a while that we would never find a way to hatch him. Even I didn't possess the necessary magics.

So either abandoned or they were killed.

[ He was ready to shrug that off as a side comment. Yet he starts to slow, scratching before rubbing the side of his head as a headache that he was ignoring before started to cause more of an unignorable pain. ]

Uh... Magic. What kind do you have that's actually impressive to see and use?

[Sadly, she cannot argue with his logic there. It is unfortunate, but a fact of life. She is merely grateful that in the end, ponykind could give Spike the life he nearly missed.]

Hmm, well. Would your god mind if I put a wall up for a moment?

A wall?

[ He's still trying to shake the headache off, though the pain was now finally starting to ease away. Which helped clear his head a bit more from... Whatever it was before. ]

Go for it. His main rule is that he doesn't care what magic gets used, as long as nothing gets really damaged.

Oh, well then.

[Celestia makes a gentle gesture with her horn, which causes a twenty-foot high wall of stone to erupt violently out of the ground not terribly far away. The spell isn't really impressive, just a matter of shifting around some bedrock down in the ground, but she could admit that it looks quite impressive.]

[ As the wall goes up, Judar is watching with interest. Which doesn't seem like much, but the ring in his red eyes seem to have something of a shift as he's focused on the way the spell is. Deconstructing and figuring out how it'd be done.

If only he were better at some particular kinds of magic. They needed a lot of practice for him to get the hang of them. Sort of like how he should be practicing heat magic. ]

Huh... Yeah, I guess that'd kind of count for what I asked for. It's kind of weird- I know a bunch of magic formulas and stuff, but none of it's just for the earth itself. Components and gravity, sure, but it's all compounded to manipulate it. It looks different from what you did.

[The spell is simple and complex all at once. Simple because it is merely analysis and telekinesis -- understanding the presence of, stresses in, and limits of the rock, then lifting it into that formation. Complex because both components require an incredible amount of finesse and skill to do all of that so casually.]

Pony magic is not necessarily so complicated, I think. We cast spells by transforming mental energy into magical energy through our horns. But to do so, we have to very carefully pattern the mental energy first to achieve the desired results.

[ Simple but also complex and detailed is a good way to put it, and Judar can see that. ]

You can't say it's not complicated and then point out having to 'very carefully pattern' everything. Then again, it's kind of the same with what I'm doing, but there's a bunch of stuff that I'm learning is way more complicated than other spells. Like this one that I think is supposed to teleport people or things from one place to some other.

[ Okay, he really can't talk about someone explaining magic as something simple but also careful and potentially complex. ]

Hmm. I suppose I should say they are not complicated in terms of contemplating complex formulae and so forth. There are, of course, spells that require that, and if you wish to write a spell down so that others can learn it, the process is often quite complicated.

The truth is, most pony spells are developed intuitively by those whose talent suits the spell, and it is difficult to describe or translate them to those who do not have the knack. Teleportation, for example, is a powerful magic that takes a great amount of natural ability to perform, and I do not know if anypony has ever managed to successfully write a general all-purpose teleportation spell.

[ Unfortunately, while there's a couple of things Judar understood and everything, there's only one part that he actually takes to respond to. If it were possible for a human to preen with nothing more than pride, than he was managing it right then. ]

No one, huh? Well, you'll know someone once I finish and start practicing this one. Still not some pony, but someone powerful and talented enough to figure it out.

[ Technically you didn't, Judar. You have an entity you absorbed to get the information. ]

I'll be very interested to see if what you write is compatible with pony magic. [She isn't lying, either. Though she doesn't expect it will be, she can't rule out the possibility, and that would be very exciting if not revolutionary.]

[She might even show a little more excitement if he didn't seem so arrogant.]

If you'll permit me to look it over when you're done, of course.

Depends on whether or not you can read it.

[ He had to give someone else a quick rundown and idea of what some of the things he wrote meant, and Lavi has a lot of memory and book skills to utilize to figure it out faster. ]

Even if it's not directly, it will probably be enough of a guideline to let you figure the rest of it out yourself.

Really, it most likely depends on whether or not the mechanics by which your magic functions can be translated into the mechanics by which pony magic functions -- and if, in doing so, it creates a pattern which a pony can hold in their mind effectively. I'll be very interested in seeing if it can.

If I can hold it in my mind and your kind can't, then it sucks to be a pony.

[ Judar, that's not how it goes. ]

Stick around and I'll be back. What I'm working on will take a while longer, but I've got plenty of things.

[ He's literally filled out books on this already. Which is why he's going to float on away and over one of the buildings to get to the main building where his things are. Just enjoy the temple of another sun god(dess), Celestia. Say hello to the perfectly normal horse that's free to wander the area. ]

[She wonders if he is missing the point deliberately or simply obtusely, but it is not her place to lecture him. Instead, she moves as far away from that perfectly normal horse as possible as she enjoy the sights and splendor.]

[ It's almost guaranteed to be a deliberate choice of how to interpret things. That seems to be what happens when you're magically and spiritually depraved. Just as he won't accept the idea of bonds affecting magic.

It's a little while longer before the magi finds Celestia again. While he's got the notebook, there's a bit of surprise in his eyes. ]

Huh. You actually stuck around.

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