The earth shook on Ghatanothoa’s 1,594,323th birthday when there were no unicorn princesses to be had. Idh-yaa screeched a lullabye which calmed the rampaging godling and split off two new continents. “Vulgtlagln lloig y'hah zhro 'fhalma Tsathoggua, k'yarnak syha'h hai ngfm'latgh,” Cthylla said. The speech of the Old Ones cannot be translated into any human tongue.  A paraphrase might be: [i]To be smothered to death once in each of Tsathoggua’s armpits every day until the stars expire is too good for the salesthing that sold me a pony colony with no princess.[/i] Idh-yaa raised its leather wings above its head and shook its stamens, releasing a cloud of pollen which smelled like dead meat and turned the sun as green as a week-old yolk.  That is to say, Idh-yaa sighed. In the valley below, the ponies were fighting.  They ignored the three unearthly forms darkening the horizon, instead neighing, nipping, and saying scandalous things about each other’s dams. Cythylla shrugged a hundred dark noodly shoulders.  [i]The ones in the display looked so delectably innocent.[/i] [i]There's no [untranslatable] in destroying ones bent on destroying themselves, [/i]Idh-yaa snorted.  [i]And this was advertised as educational![/i] Ghatanothoa focused its lens-array on the ponies, stamped the ground with a dozen pseudopods, and shouted, “Nazhro gnaiih ee vulgtm!”  This meant nothing at all, as it was not yet even two million years old. [i]Let it vent its fury[/i], Idh-yaa said.  [i]How long can a youngling rage?[/i] Cythylla looked back, saying nothing. “Chupadgh,” Idh-yaa said.  This is one word of the Old Speech that can be translated.  It means, [i]Shit[/i]. [hr] “Stell'bsna gastur lloig cep naflsll'ha fhtagn, shtunggli gnaiih chtenff gotha ph'ftaghu wgah'n, athg nasyha'h fm'latgh,” Idh-yaa said, or, [i]This is a terrible idea[/i]. This is an especially imprecise translation.  The Old Speech has no word for “terrible,” as the fish-people of R’lyeh have no word for “water.”  The words give examples of “bad, relative to the standards of the Elder Gods.”  A literal translation would drive one mad. Idh-yaa held out one foreleg and beheld it with disgust.  No thousand limbs shimmering iridescent oily black now; only four stiff legs coated in wispy blue-gray fibers. [i]Peace.  Before a [3^5 years] passes, the youngling’s gaze will wander, and we shall discard these forms.[/i] In fact Ghatanothoa’s gaze, and indeed its entire body, had already wandered, and was expressing its disappointment in its birthday present by creating interesting geological formations in what we now call Zebrica. The Old Ones watched the hideously colored ponies bounding up the mountain.  “Greetings, my little pony,” Cythylla said to the first to arrive. Idh-yaa sighed. [hr] Cythylla and Idh-yaa looked down from their castle’s tallest tower upon the kingdom below. “Here is a world worth defiling!” Idh-yaa said proudly. “Indeed,” Cythylla agreed, stroking the mane of a golden pegasus stallion who lay at its feet. They seldom spoke the Old Speech anymore.  They had taken pony names and pony consorts, and found pony speech less wanting, and less likely to make their courtiers stumble and drool. The pegasus opened its eyes.  “What was that?” “Nothing, Butter dear,” Cythylla replied. [hr] Idy-yaa was on the battlements teaching Moonmist to feel the lunar wind the night Ghatanothoa returned. It slithered through the forest, up to the outer keep.  Its idiot gaze swept across the ponies staggering from their sleep. Cythylla and Idy-yaa charged, horns lowered.  Ghatanothoa touched them with one clumsy tentacle, and they rolled to the grass. “Lo!  I am slain!” Idy-yaa called.  The false princess thrashed its legs, then lay still. “And I likewise!” said Cythylla. Each cracked one eyelid open to watch Ghatanothoa. It snatched up a pony, a goat, and a dragon visiting from afar, and plucked an eagle from the sky.  Their screams lasted mere seconds.  Skin, bones, and innards rained all round while claws clicked merrily. Two false pony eyes opened wider. Where four had been, Ghatanothoa set gently down one mad thing of wing, horn, hair, and scale.  Then it reached for Moonmist and Butter Breeze, and their screams tore the night. Idy-yaa stood up. So did Cythylla. They locked their eyes on Ghatanothoa and lowered their heads, and when their hornglow faded there was a column of oily smoke where the godling had stood. They sniffed the air, stamped their hooves, and turned to face each other. “Sister,” Cythylla said. “Sister,” Idy-yaa replied. And when the dazed ponies gathered around, these new sisters swore to them that no such monster would ever trouble them again.