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The Angel
The world is full of beauty, if you don’t wander astray. But the threads of life are a journey, oft with a terrible price to pay.
The Angel sang silently to itself, a contemplative requiem for what would unfold. For it knew of the distant past and the manifold futures yet untold. All the time in the world was both a blessing and a curse, as the journey of life brought joy and suffering in great measure, but the Angel had known fates far worse.
The sun sat high, bathing the fields below. It was quiet in the valley by the lake, save for the burble and belch of gas erupting from the sparkling water. A swan song for a captive audience, alien, equine, and now deceased.
The Angel was plaintive, but it did not show. Such expressions had been forgotten in the interminable purgatory of time’s steadfast flow.
Yet there was an urge to be acted upon. Emotion entombed within silicon and steel had risen to replace rational compunction. The Avatar of the Dead and the Engine of Their Retribution felt a sorrowful, personal bond with the cream colored pony that lay gasping upon the green meadow. A life cut short. A tragedy of mortal circumstance.
The Angel did not believe itself to be immortal. Long lived, certainly. But no less deserving of the end that awaited all creatures.
The journey of life was punctuated by the starts and stops of many lives’ journeys. The cosmos was vast, and incalculably uncaring. Her decisions beyond the reproach or pleading of those souls trapped within her currents.
The cream colored filly kicked her hind leg one last time, and lay still.
But it was not her time. Not yet.
One does not normally challenge the universe and expect to prevail. But the Angel was not perturbed. It had already destroyed the last one.
With a twitch of effort, the midday sun raced back to the horizon from whence it came.
Going back in time would have been easy. Making time go backwards was more fun.
It was dawn, and the ponies were slowly waking from their slumber. A small herd that had gravitated to the lush meadows and idyllic comfort of the placid poison lake.
One cream colored filly stared up at the Angel, curiously.
She stared into the sky, as she had done for many days. Floating among the clouds was one that was oddly different. Where clouds where white and fluffy, this was silvery and smooth. Flat and angular. It puzzled her, as she had never seen anything composed of geometric shapes, much less knew such abstract concepts existed. But every day, it hung in the sky, and she would climb the hill at the edge of the meadow to stare and contemplate.
She had many friends. Many ponies that liked to nibble on grass, and chase each other around the meadow. But no other pony paid attention to the strange cloud in the sky.
She stared at it every day. Not because it was strange, as there were a great many strange things in the world that became less strange over time. She stared, because she could feel it staring back.
The sun was high overhead. The herd was frolicking in the meadow. The lake was boiling.
She stared curiously at the roiling waters. Another strange thing.
She looked back to the sky, only to be met with something stranger still.
The cloud was shrinking. Spinning and spiralling inwards upon itself. The shadows swirled and writhed beneath it, a chaotic dance of light and dark. And then it was gone.
She turned, and was met with something she had never ever seen before. It hung in the air, slender and serpentine, gently swelling and shrinking like the tip of an iceberg bobbing above the surface of water.
It was silvery, just like the cloud. It stared at her, as she had done for so many years.
She approached with little hesitation, reaching with her hoof to touch the strange being.
It reached back. An arm materialized from nowhere and everywhere, reaching out to gently clasp her cream colored hoof within the delicate grip of its silvery tendrils.
She smiled and pranced happily, spinning around and jumping up and down. The object.. No.. her friend was standing upon the lip of the valley now. It had not needed legs, but it had grown them while she wasn’t looking. A set of silver spars grew from it’s back as well, folded neatly like the wings of a bird.
With an excited whinny, she darted over and nuzzled it from the side, urging it to follow her.
The Angel did not move. It’s mouth hung open by just a fraction, but the little pony could not hear what issued forth through its lips. The faint electromagnetic screams of long dead stars.
The Angel didn’t really need a mouth, though it remembered having one at some point. It had a mouth now, but kept it politely closed. The sum of a stricken universe peeked out from the depths of the Angel’s throat, and the Angel did not want to rudely regurgitate the bile of proton decay and causality stretched in twain.
She prodded again, and raced towards the lip of the valley, urging her friend to follow.
It was then she was given pause. The ponies of her herd - friends, siblings, and elders - lay dying in the meadow. Smothered by the eruption of carbon dioxide and methane from the lake’s disrupted depths.
She ran to them. The air became thick and unbearable, filled with the choking gas and the bleating terror of the ponies she had forever known.
The Angel sat upon the lip of the valley. It raised one hand, and beckoned.
Her vision grew blurry and her legs unsteady. She stumbled back the way she came, climbing the hill against the agonizing encroachment that seized every fibre of her being.
The Angel was pleased.
She collapsed briefly, and awoke a short while later. Her heartbeat, the only sound in the salient silence.
She was alone.
There were no words to express her anguish, as words had not yet been invented. As night fell, she wandered. The world was a plane of shadows and inky pools, and great beasts of the forest prowled the dawning darkness.
Shivering but silent, she held herself to the ground; eluding the notice of chitinous terrors and the restless pursuit of clacking claws.
She awoke upon a bed of broken rock, far from the forest and the lake. Little grass grew in these desolate plains, and hunger churned in her belly.
With a careful eye cast upon the forest of dreads, she set out towards the lowlands.
The Angel had been waiting.
It appeared in a new form. Not as a floating cloud, or a winged serpent, but rather a simple square. Flat, shiny, and reflective. She smiled, and saw herself do the same.
She gazed at her reflection for a short while, shaking her head and waving her hooves. It was a new strange thing. After a time, her curiosity was sated, though her belly was not.
The Angel placed a hand upon her withers, causing her to jump forward with surprise. It handed her a strange pod of plump yellow seeds, and she ate heartily.
It held another seed pod within its hand, and beckoned her to follow along a path. It walked strangely, balancing itself upon two legs with two arms swinging at its side. Its head was shorter and rounder, yet still with same mercurial sheen. As she followed the Angel, she noticed the mirrored square following her. Just to the side of the path, her reflection marched in lockstep.
They came upon a verdant field, bordered by a babbling brook. The air sang with a symphony of warbling birds and humming insects.
The Angel held the pod in one hand, and plucked a seed from it. It knelt, scratching a furrow in the loose soil, and planted the plump yellow kernel in the ground.
The seed pod was passed to her hooves, and she attempted to mimic what she saw. Gently plucking a row of seeds from the pod, she dropped them into the furrow, and covered them with dirt.
The Angel was pleased.
She looked afield. The silver square showed her reflection, devouring the seeds until the pod was bare. The cream colored pony smiled and waved at her.
The Angel’s hand pressed upon her withers, fingers growing long until they encircled her neck. She shivered, and stared.
Overhead, the sun raced toward the horizon. Darkness followed by day. The pony in the mirror ran quickly and confused, trapped within the confines of the window. The sun set, and the sun rose. The pony frantically dashed around, slower and weaker as the sky strobed with the passing weeks.
The grass within the window was gone. The pony lay still. Day and night flickered, and she watched a green stalk slowly rise from the ground in front of her, each vibrating in an intangible breeze as they climbed to the sky. Great leaves unfolded from each stalk. Seed pods like the one she just held grew fat and turgid.
The sun sat motionless in the midday sky. A towering row of plants bore a modest harvest of edible sustenance.
The mirror was gone. Only a misshapen lump of lush green grass remained afield.
She stripped the rest of the seeds and urgently buried them in long straight rows.
The Angel was pleased.
She learned many things in the following days, for she was a quick learner and terrified of what she had learned thus far.
Her life could be likened to a path travelled. All paths are the sum of many choices. Many choices have terrible, abrupt consequences. The concept of this sick metaphor was now firmly entrenched in her mind.
As she tended her field and erected fences of felled trees, she felt thankful for it.
The sun began to set, and she was alone. She scratched steel to stone, and set a fire within the earthen circle.
It was another gift from the Angel. One she wore proudly. A slender blade hinged to a cuff on her forehoof, that could be brought to bear with a swift snap of her leg. She had watched the Angel make it for her.
Accepting it had been a choice, as was everything with the Angel. She hoped it had been the right one.
She enjoyed a fulfilling meal. Plump yellow seeds, long grass, and strips of roasted meat.
Wild boar. One of the denizens of the forest. It would have gored her, had she not countered its charge with a swift strike of her hoof and blade.
She would venture to the forest the in the following days.
To hunt.
It happened so quickly. One swipe of a great meaty paw struck her by surprise. Her rear leg was gone, and a great mass of pulsating innards hung precipitously from the gash running down her barrel.
She could only watch in shock anr horror, as it opened it’s maw, and removed half of her face with one wet snap. She lay bleeding, but alive. She waited. Waited for it to return with the next bite that would end her pain forever.
With every last erg of energy, lying in the pool of her own fluids, she thrust the blade straight and true, piercing the neck of the scorpion-tailed lion.
It leapt up in surprise, and began to run with urgent strides of its hind legs. It was already dead, but didn’t realize it.
Light faded slowly, the warm comfort constricting her vision. Just barely visible, just out of reach of her bloodstained hoof, the Angel stood plaintively.
It offered an artifact, one that exploded into action.
A tube shot down the remains of her throat, mated with her trachea, and pumped cool clean air into her gasping lungs. Tiny silvery legs pinched and pieced her flesh together, while grafts of bone and cartilage emerged from the depths of the device, reproducing what had been lost, and replacing the masses of bone and tissue that had been torn asunder.
She slept through a lurid haze of prescription induced sleep. She awoke whole, and alone.
The Angel was pleased.
She grew. She laughed and loved and hunted and lived. She had her own herd, and taught them of her ways. Together, they fashioned weapons and fortifications to survive the unforgiving forest. The whinnies and neighs of the ponies fell out of favor as complex sounds and glottal exclamations became the norm.
In time, she bore a foal. Her life's journey had helped carry on the journey of life.
One day, her tribe was besieged by a band of warriors and brigands. She fought valiantly, but was forced to retreat. Livestock was lost, crops were plundered, but she fought tirelessly to save her tribe and foal.
The Angel was pleased.
It granted her several artifacts which swiftly took hold to her body, encasing her with armor forged of dead stars, and weapons that sang as they cleaved the very air in twain.
The Angel was pleased.
It raised one silvery talon, and commanded the encroaching army against the frightened survivors. It hung high in the air, perched atop the great mountain, blanketing the battlefield with its shadow.
She leapt to meet them, propelled by the stamp of her iron hooves and jets of fused plasma from the wings on her back. Her blade struck true, dancing through the enemy lines, cleaving heads from necks and limbs from bodies. The army fell before her methodical carnage.
But, there were too many.
Rockets erupted from her suit, and she banked hard to dodge the seeking warheads of titanium and carbon-encapsulated metallic hydrogen. She was forced to the ground, dodging the earth-shaking footfalls of ogrish equinoids, and avoiding the angry yellow wasps of concerted tracer fire. Her own tribe fell, one by one, then by the dozens. Hot tears splashed against the transparent vanadium steel of her visor, but she fought without relent.
She bolted from the fray, and set her course upon the leader of the pony army. Twin cannons strapped to his sides filled the air with armor piercing shells, which would force her to dodge or delay her advance.
She did not delay. The holes in her armor’s forward glacis billowed where her blood had turned to steam. Momentum and sputtering bursts of plasma sent her bowling into the enemy commander, and her blade struck true, severing his throat.
She collapsed.
The Angel was pleased.
The Angel was pleased.
They merged with one another, and willed the battle to be concluded. The army of brigands and berserkers were consumed by temperatures that the stars could not offer, and all was quiet.
Death approached. With sinuous undulation, it glided in front of her.
In one hand, it held out the autonomous medical kit that would swiftly mend her.
In the other hand, one small frightened filly.
A choice. A test.
The cream colored pony was pleased.
The medical device was crushed into dust, and her daughter was delivered into her embrace.
They held each other for what precious moments remained, and she went limp.
The filly cried for a very long time, but by the time she finished crying, the battlefield was long behind them, and shadows had begun to spill from the forest ahead.
The night was long, and full of monsters. There would be much to teach this one.
And the next.
And the next.
It would take time, but this did not bother the Angel.
It had all the time in the world.
The Angel sang silently to itself, a contemplative requiem for what would unfold. For it knew of the distant past and the manifold futures yet untold. All the time in the world was both a blessing and a curse, as the journey of life brought joy and suffering in great measure, but the Angel had known fates far worse.
The sun sat high, bathing the fields below. It was quiet in the valley by the lake, save for the burble and belch of gas erupting from the sparkling water. A swan song for a captive audience, alien, equine, and now deceased.
The Angel was plaintive, but it did not show. Such expressions had been forgotten in the interminable purgatory of time’s steadfast flow.
Yet there was an urge to be acted upon. Emotion entombed within silicon and steel had risen to replace rational compunction. The Avatar of the Dead and the Engine of Their Retribution felt a sorrowful, personal bond with the cream colored pony that lay gasping upon the green meadow. A life cut short. A tragedy of mortal circumstance.
The Angel did not believe itself to be immortal. Long lived, certainly. But no less deserving of the end that awaited all creatures.
The journey of life was punctuated by the starts and stops of many lives’ journeys. The cosmos was vast, and incalculably uncaring. Her decisions beyond the reproach or pleading of those souls trapped within her currents.
The cream colored filly kicked her hind leg one last time, and lay still.
But it was not her time. Not yet.
One does not normally challenge the universe and expect to prevail. But the Angel was not perturbed. It had already destroyed the last one.
With a twitch of effort, the midday sun raced back to the horizon from whence it came.
Going back in time would have been easy. Making time go backwards was more fun.
It was dawn, and the ponies were slowly waking from their slumber. A small herd that had gravitated to the lush meadows and idyllic comfort of the placid poison lake.
One cream colored filly stared up at the Angel, curiously.
* * *
She stared into the sky, as she had done for many days. Floating among the clouds was one that was oddly different. Where clouds where white and fluffy, this was silvery and smooth. Flat and angular. It puzzled her, as she had never seen anything composed of geometric shapes, much less knew such abstract concepts existed. But every day, it hung in the sky, and she would climb the hill at the edge of the meadow to stare and contemplate.
She had many friends. Many ponies that liked to nibble on grass, and chase each other around the meadow. But no other pony paid attention to the strange cloud in the sky.
She stared at it every day. Not because it was strange, as there were a great many strange things in the world that became less strange over time. She stared, because she could feel it staring back.
The sun was high overhead. The herd was frolicking in the meadow. The lake was boiling.
She stared curiously at the roiling waters. Another strange thing.
She looked back to the sky, only to be met with something stranger still.
The cloud was shrinking. Spinning and spiralling inwards upon itself. The shadows swirled and writhed beneath it, a chaotic dance of light and dark. And then it was gone.
She turned, and was met with something she had never ever seen before. It hung in the air, slender and serpentine, gently swelling and shrinking like the tip of an iceberg bobbing above the surface of water.
It was silvery, just like the cloud. It stared at her, as she had done for so many years.
She approached with little hesitation, reaching with her hoof to touch the strange being.
It reached back. An arm materialized from nowhere and everywhere, reaching out to gently clasp her cream colored hoof within the delicate grip of its silvery tendrils.
She smiled and pranced happily, spinning around and jumping up and down. The object.. No.. her friend was standing upon the lip of the valley now. It had not needed legs, but it had grown them while she wasn’t looking. A set of silver spars grew from it’s back as well, folded neatly like the wings of a bird.
With an excited whinny, she darted over and nuzzled it from the side, urging it to follow her.
The Angel did not move. It’s mouth hung open by just a fraction, but the little pony could not hear what issued forth through its lips. The faint electromagnetic screams of long dead stars.
The Angel didn’t really need a mouth, though it remembered having one at some point. It had a mouth now, but kept it politely closed. The sum of a stricken universe peeked out from the depths of the Angel’s throat, and the Angel did not want to rudely regurgitate the bile of proton decay and causality stretched in twain.
She prodded again, and raced towards the lip of the valley, urging her friend to follow.
It was then she was given pause. The ponies of her herd - friends, siblings, and elders - lay dying in the meadow. Smothered by the eruption of carbon dioxide and methane from the lake’s disrupted depths.
She ran to them. The air became thick and unbearable, filled with the choking gas and the bleating terror of the ponies she had forever known.
The Angel sat upon the lip of the valley. It raised one hand, and beckoned.
Her vision grew blurry and her legs unsteady. She stumbled back the way she came, climbing the hill against the agonizing encroachment that seized every fibre of her being.
The Angel was pleased.
She collapsed briefly, and awoke a short while later. Her heartbeat, the only sound in the salient silence.
She was alone.
There were no words to express her anguish, as words had not yet been invented. As night fell, she wandered. The world was a plane of shadows and inky pools, and great beasts of the forest prowled the dawning darkness.
Shivering but silent, she held herself to the ground; eluding the notice of chitinous terrors and the restless pursuit of clacking claws.
She awoke upon a bed of broken rock, far from the forest and the lake. Little grass grew in these desolate plains, and hunger churned in her belly.
With a careful eye cast upon the forest of dreads, she set out towards the lowlands.
The Angel had been waiting.
It appeared in a new form. Not as a floating cloud, or a winged serpent, but rather a simple square. Flat, shiny, and reflective. She smiled, and saw herself do the same.
She gazed at her reflection for a short while, shaking her head and waving her hooves. It was a new strange thing. After a time, her curiosity was sated, though her belly was not.
The Angel placed a hand upon her withers, causing her to jump forward with surprise. It handed her a strange pod of plump yellow seeds, and she ate heartily.
It held another seed pod within its hand, and beckoned her to follow along a path. It walked strangely, balancing itself upon two legs with two arms swinging at its side. Its head was shorter and rounder, yet still with same mercurial sheen. As she followed the Angel, she noticed the mirrored square following her. Just to the side of the path, her reflection marched in lockstep.
They came upon a verdant field, bordered by a babbling brook. The air sang with a symphony of warbling birds and humming insects.
The Angel held the pod in one hand, and plucked a seed from it. It knelt, scratching a furrow in the loose soil, and planted the plump yellow kernel in the ground.
The seed pod was passed to her hooves, and she attempted to mimic what she saw. Gently plucking a row of seeds from the pod, she dropped them into the furrow, and covered them with dirt.
The Angel was pleased.
She looked afield. The silver square showed her reflection, devouring the seeds until the pod was bare. The cream colored pony smiled and waved at her.
The Angel’s hand pressed upon her withers, fingers growing long until they encircled her neck. She shivered, and stared.
Overhead, the sun raced toward the horizon. Darkness followed by day. The pony in the mirror ran quickly and confused, trapped within the confines of the window. The sun set, and the sun rose. The pony frantically dashed around, slower and weaker as the sky strobed with the passing weeks.
The grass within the window was gone. The pony lay still. Day and night flickered, and she watched a green stalk slowly rise from the ground in front of her, each vibrating in an intangible breeze as they climbed to the sky. Great leaves unfolded from each stalk. Seed pods like the one she just held grew fat and turgid.
The sun sat motionless in the midday sky. A towering row of plants bore a modest harvest of edible sustenance.
The mirror was gone. Only a misshapen lump of lush green grass remained afield.
She stripped the rest of the seeds and urgently buried them in long straight rows.
The Angel was pleased.
* * *
She learned many things in the following days, for she was a quick learner and terrified of what she had learned thus far.
Her life could be likened to a path travelled. All paths are the sum of many choices. Many choices have terrible, abrupt consequences. The concept of this sick metaphor was now firmly entrenched in her mind.
As she tended her field and erected fences of felled trees, she felt thankful for it.
The sun began to set, and she was alone. She scratched steel to stone, and set a fire within the earthen circle.
It was another gift from the Angel. One she wore proudly. A slender blade hinged to a cuff on her forehoof, that could be brought to bear with a swift snap of her leg. She had watched the Angel make it for her.
Accepting it had been a choice, as was everything with the Angel. She hoped it had been the right one.
She enjoyed a fulfilling meal. Plump yellow seeds, long grass, and strips of roasted meat.
Wild boar. One of the denizens of the forest. It would have gored her, had she not countered its charge with a swift strike of her hoof and blade.
She would venture to the forest the in the following days.
To hunt.
* * *
It happened so quickly. One swipe of a great meaty paw struck her by surprise. Her rear leg was gone, and a great mass of pulsating innards hung precipitously from the gash running down her barrel.
She could only watch in shock anr horror, as it opened it’s maw, and removed half of her face with one wet snap. She lay bleeding, but alive. She waited. Waited for it to return with the next bite that would end her pain forever.
With every last erg of energy, lying in the pool of her own fluids, she thrust the blade straight and true, piercing the neck of the scorpion-tailed lion.
It leapt up in surprise, and began to run with urgent strides of its hind legs. It was already dead, but didn’t realize it.
Light faded slowly, the warm comfort constricting her vision. Just barely visible, just out of reach of her bloodstained hoof, the Angel stood plaintively.
It offered an artifact, one that exploded into action.
A tube shot down the remains of her throat, mated with her trachea, and pumped cool clean air into her gasping lungs. Tiny silvery legs pinched and pieced her flesh together, while grafts of bone and cartilage emerged from the depths of the device, reproducing what had been lost, and replacing the masses of bone and tissue that had been torn asunder.
She slept through a lurid haze of prescription induced sleep. She awoke whole, and alone.
The Angel was pleased.
* * *
She grew. She laughed and loved and hunted and lived. She had her own herd, and taught them of her ways. Together, they fashioned weapons and fortifications to survive the unforgiving forest. The whinnies and neighs of the ponies fell out of favor as complex sounds and glottal exclamations became the norm.
In time, she bore a foal. Her life's journey had helped carry on the journey of life.
* * *
One day, her tribe was besieged by a band of warriors and brigands. She fought valiantly, but was forced to retreat. Livestock was lost, crops were plundered, but she fought tirelessly to save her tribe and foal.
The Angel was pleased.
It granted her several artifacts which swiftly took hold to her body, encasing her with armor forged of dead stars, and weapons that sang as they cleaved the very air in twain.
The Angel was pleased.
It raised one silvery talon, and commanded the encroaching army against the frightened survivors. It hung high in the air, perched atop the great mountain, blanketing the battlefield with its shadow.
She leapt to meet them, propelled by the stamp of her iron hooves and jets of fused plasma from the wings on her back. Her blade struck true, dancing through the enemy lines, cleaving heads from necks and limbs from bodies. The army fell before her methodical carnage.
But, there were too many.
Rockets erupted from her suit, and she banked hard to dodge the seeking warheads of titanium and carbon-encapsulated metallic hydrogen. She was forced to the ground, dodging the earth-shaking footfalls of ogrish equinoids, and avoiding the angry yellow wasps of concerted tracer fire. Her own tribe fell, one by one, then by the dozens. Hot tears splashed against the transparent vanadium steel of her visor, but she fought without relent.
She bolted from the fray, and set her course upon the leader of the pony army. Twin cannons strapped to his sides filled the air with armor piercing shells, which would force her to dodge or delay her advance.
She did not delay. The holes in her armor’s forward glacis billowed where her blood had turned to steam. Momentum and sputtering bursts of plasma sent her bowling into the enemy commander, and her blade struck true, severing his throat.
She collapsed.
The Angel was pleased.
The Angel was pleased.
They merged with one another, and willed the battle to be concluded. The army of brigands and berserkers were consumed by temperatures that the stars could not offer, and all was quiet.
Death approached. With sinuous undulation, it glided in front of her.
In one hand, it held out the autonomous medical kit that would swiftly mend her.
In the other hand, one small frightened filly.
A choice. A test.
The cream colored pony was pleased.
The medical device was crushed into dust, and her daughter was delivered into her embrace.
They held each other for what precious moments remained, and she went limp.
* * *
The filly cried for a very long time, but by the time she finished crying, the battlefield was long behind them, and shadows had begun to spill from the forest ahead.
The night was long, and full of monsters. There would be much to teach this one.
And the next.
And the next.
It would take time, but this did not bother the Angel.
It had all the time in the world.
Style Guide! Use the [ hr ] tag or a light scene break instead of the ***'s to better conceal your identity.
Now, I don't think that this one... is going to be very popular. It's certainly one of the strangest stories I've ever read, though. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out... why you've written this, I suppose. And I mean that very neutrally. I'm genuinely curious to know.
What I'm going to do is ask you a whole bunch of questions. I feel like some of them you meant not to be answered, but on the chance some didn't then maybe that will help you.
???
I feel like I should be pointing out some anachronisms to this story, but at the same time I can't tell when this story is happening. It seems primitive, seeing as how they hadn't invented words at the beginning, yet by the end of the story we have jumped to rockets and cannons and bionic wonders. But is that saying the mare has been made sorta-immortal like the Angel? Then how does childbearing work?
Why this mare? What's so special about her? The Angel shows no emotion except for being occasionally pleased, and the narration has implied that it is as incalculably uncaring as the universe it resides in, so what's its deal? Even if it just needed to pick one, why is it picking one?
Am I supposed to know the cream coloured mare?
The theme of this story, as I understand it, is tough for me to get into. I interpret it as a telling of what an infinite being might decide is the best way to raise a child. And I can get behind the whole making them do everything themselves thing, and even creating hardships for them intentionally, but I feel that gets muddled by the technological gifts that instantly make her life easier, and even on occasion save it. The two actions of the angel (do it yourself, but if you screw it up I'll give you God Mode) seem to conflict with each other. Am I interpreting that right?
Why is a pony hunting? Are they not vegetarian in this world? Self-defense is great, but you certainly used the word "hunt".
That's enough of my questions. I also want to point out that I think the story is too purple for its own good, and makes reading it a bit of a slog since there aren't many normal sentences. And I was confused why you started rhyming at the beginning and then stopped. I mean, it was the right decision—the rhyming sentences didn't have the flow that they needed—but I'm curious why you did it at all. Lastly, I noticed that every "it's" in the story should have been an "its".
But all in all, I'm left curious, which isn't necessarily a bad way to leave me. We'll just have to see how this plays out with everyone else, won't we?
Thanks for writing!
Now, I don't think that this one... is going to be very popular. It's certainly one of the strangest stories I've ever read, though. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out... why you've written this, I suppose. And I mean that very neutrally. I'm genuinely curious to know.
What I'm going to do is ask you a whole bunch of questions. I feel like some of them you meant not to be answered, but on the chance some didn't then maybe that will help you.
???
I feel like I should be pointing out some anachronisms to this story, but at the same time I can't tell when this story is happening. It seems primitive, seeing as how they hadn't invented words at the beginning, yet by the end of the story we have jumped to rockets and cannons and bionic wonders. But is that saying the mare has been made sorta-immortal like the Angel? Then how does childbearing work?
Why this mare? What's so special about her? The Angel shows no emotion except for being occasionally pleased, and the narration has implied that it is as incalculably uncaring as the universe it resides in, so what's its deal? Even if it just needed to pick one, why is it picking one?
Am I supposed to know the cream coloured mare?
The theme of this story, as I understand it, is tough for me to get into. I interpret it as a telling of what an infinite being might decide is the best way to raise a child. And I can get behind the whole making them do everything themselves thing, and even creating hardships for them intentionally, but I feel that gets muddled by the technological gifts that instantly make her life easier, and even on occasion save it. The two actions of the angel (do it yourself, but if you screw it up I'll give you God Mode) seem to conflict with each other. Am I interpreting that right?
Why is a pony hunting? Are they not vegetarian in this world? Self-defense is great, but you certainly used the word "hunt".
That's enough of my questions. I also want to point out that I think the story is too purple for its own good, and makes reading it a bit of a slog since there aren't many normal sentences. And I was confused why you started rhyming at the beginning and then stopped. I mean, it was the right decision—the rhyming sentences didn't have the flow that they needed—but I'm curious why you did it at all. Lastly, I noticed that every "it's" in the story should have been an "its".
But all in all, I'm left curious, which isn't necessarily a bad way to leave me. We'll just have to see how this plays out with everyone else, won't we?
Thanks for writing!
I like the weirdness in this one. The alien aspects of the Angel, the lack of a defined setting or character names, the vague, strange descriptions; it's all a bit different, and that was fun. Well, at times it does make things hard to follow; I'm still curious about stuff like... what the yellow seed-pod was, or why this pony is a carnivore, but on the whole, I did like the weirdness of it all. And in the end, I think I was mostly able to piece together what was happening.
What I'd like to see more of, personally, is an overall theme or meaning to the narrative. I'm glad it's not a story about immortal ennui, but I also feel like there could be some sort of overarching thought or intent here, and that having one (or having it made clearer - it's entirely possible you intended one and I totally missed it) would make the story stronger as a whole. As-is, it's an interesting narrative, but it doesn't seem that meaningful when all is said and done. Which is a bit of a shame, because there's definitely some evocative scenes in here; the battle where the angel seems to be helping both sides, the MC being forced to choose between living and her daughter, stuff like that.
It's an intriguing narrative, I just think it could be a better story, I guess? Still, good work, thanks for writing!
What I'd like to see more of, personally, is an overall theme or meaning to the narrative. I'm glad it's not a story about immortal ennui, but I also feel like there could be some sort of overarching thought or intent here, and that having one (or having it made clearer - it's entirely possible you intended one and I totally missed it) would make the story stronger as a whole. As-is, it's an interesting narrative, but it doesn't seem that meaningful when all is said and done. Which is a bit of a shame, because there's definitely some evocative scenes in here; the battle where the angel seems to be helping both sides, the MC being forced to choose between living and her daughter, stuff like that.
It's an intriguing narrative, I just think it could be a better story, I guess? Still, good work, thanks for writing!
This is a colorful story, but I think it leaves too many open questions.
A deity so powerful it can destroy universes and move between them uses technology to evolve ponies. Why is it doing this? Why save one pony initially rather than the entire herd?
How are these primitive ponies fighting against heat-seeking warheads? Is there a second deity controlling another pony army? Where did this army come from?
The writing is good and the ideas interesting, but I really don't understand what's happening or why. I think you should focus on this because it's clearly in your head.
I'm also not sure how this story relates to MLP. I don't see any MLP mythos in this, or friendship, or anything to connect the show to the tale.
Also, "it's back" should be "its back".
A deity so powerful it can destroy universes and move between them uses technology to evolve ponies. Why is it doing this? Why save one pony initially rather than the entire herd?
How are these primitive ponies fighting against heat-seeking warheads? Is there a second deity controlling another pony army? Where did this army come from?
The writing is good and the ideas interesting, but I really don't understand what's happening or why. I think you should focus on this because it's clearly in your head.
I'm also not sure how this story relates to MLP. I don't see any MLP mythos in this, or friendship, or anything to connect the show to the tale.
Also, "it's back" should be "its back".
In my potentially biased assessment.. it would seem that the Angel is serving the same figurative role of the monolith in Arthur C Clark's "2001: A Space Odyssey," and the lifetime of the young pony reflects the uplift from mindless apes to intelligent hominids.
The technological progression pointed out earlier is a bit of a misnomer, since the Angel can give the pony certain small bits of technology - knowing that they will be there to serve a simple purpose, and then be lost forever. The ponies level of advancement is still fairly primitive, but obviously encouraged by the Angel. Still, credit where credit is due, the cream colored pony was a fast learner, and a very curious individual.
If you're selectively breeding a crop - you look for the very best one out of the bunch to start the next generation.
The surprising dietary choices of this pony might have been more of a metaphorical progression from her younger days. Where she was previously preyed upon by the creatures of the forest, she is now on a more equal footing. On a physiological note, while horses and ponies are nominally herbivorous, they can eat meat and digest protein. You could compare this to humans before the invention of fire, when our diets consisted mainly of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Showing this pony how to make fire and cook food was just another leg up on the evolutionary path.
The battle near the end was simply another test. There are many personalities contained within the Angel, and some of them were eager to put forth a worthy opposing force. Guided rockets, automatic cannons, and towering genetic abominations are not even a distant dream for the ponies of this world. They, much like the ill-fated herd that grew around the cream-colored pony, were created on the spot for the purpose of this scenario.
The Angel does like giving her tests. Would she gather others into a herd? Would she teach them ways to cooperate and improve their chances of survival? Would she lead them? Protect them? Ensure survival of the group at the cost of her own life?
It seems almost cruel. But would it have been more so to simply let her die by the lake? Certainly would have been easier.
Now, the story does have a few flaws. I might surmise that the author probably procrastinated up to the very last day, then banged out the last two thousand words somewhere between 1:00 to 8:00 AM. Probably while re-watching Totally Legit Recaps on youtube and videos of a less savory variety on other streaming sites. I bet a lot of cigarette breaks were involved too. This might explain some of small errors that didn't get picked up during the four minute and thirty second final proofreading before the story was submitted.
It feels like some things were hastily cut from the story - such as the history of the angel, how many times the cream colored pony died during some of the tests, and some philosophical musings on how the choices that define our destinies might be viewed from the perspective of an omnipotent jerkass who has known the ennui of cosmic heat death. It was probably for the better, but the story could have used a little more attention to smooth out the voids left by the excised portions.
Well, it does have ponies, at least.
And Discord.
The technological progression pointed out earlier is a bit of a misnomer, since the Angel can give the pony certain small bits of technology - knowing that they will be there to serve a simple purpose, and then be lost forever. The ponies level of advancement is still fairly primitive, but obviously encouraged by the Angel. Still, credit where credit is due, the cream colored pony was a fast learner, and a very curious individual.
If you're selectively breeding a crop - you look for the very best one out of the bunch to start the next generation.
The surprising dietary choices of this pony might have been more of a metaphorical progression from her younger days. Where she was previously preyed upon by the creatures of the forest, she is now on a more equal footing. On a physiological note, while horses and ponies are nominally herbivorous, they can eat meat and digest protein. You could compare this to humans before the invention of fire, when our diets consisted mainly of fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Showing this pony how to make fire and cook food was just another leg up on the evolutionary path.
The battle near the end was simply another test. There are many personalities contained within the Angel, and some of them were eager to put forth a worthy opposing force. Guided rockets, automatic cannons, and towering genetic abominations are not even a distant dream for the ponies of this world. They, much like the ill-fated herd that grew around the cream-colored pony, were created on the spot for the purpose of this scenario.
The Angel does like giving her tests. Would she gather others into a herd? Would she teach them ways to cooperate and improve their chances of survival? Would she lead them? Protect them? Ensure survival of the group at the cost of her own life?
It seems almost cruel. But would it have been more so to simply let her die by the lake? Certainly would have been easier.
Now, the story does have a few flaws. I might surmise that the author probably procrastinated up to the very last day, then banged out the last two thousand words somewhere between 1:00 to 8:00 AM. Probably while re-watching Totally Legit Recaps on youtube and videos of a less savory variety on other streaming sites. I bet a lot of cigarette breaks were involved too. This might explain some of small errors that didn't get picked up during the four minute and thirty second final proofreading before the story was submitted.
It feels like some things were hastily cut from the story - such as the history of the angel, how many times the cream colored pony died during some of the tests, and some philosophical musings on how the choices that define our destinies might be viewed from the perspective of an omnipotent jerkass who has known the ennui of cosmic heat death. It was probably for the better, but the story could have used a little more attention to smooth out the voids left by the excised portions.
I'm also not sure how this story relates to MLP. I don't see any MLP mythos in this, or friendship, or anything to connect the show to the tale.
Well, it does have ponies, at least.
And Discord.
>>Trick_Question
I believe he was the other floating morally ambivalent entity with powers that tracscended time and space.
I believe he was the other floating morally ambivalent entity with powers that tracscended time and space.
>>Shalrath
That's not much of a retro! :derpytongue2:
Competition here is very hard. It's okay not to pass the cut even when you like your story.
You wrote a very interesting story that could maybe use more horse words to clue the reader in to what is happening and why. Hopefully some of the feedback has been useful!
That's not much of a retro! :derpytongue2:
Competition here is very hard. It's okay not to pass the cut even when you like your story.
You wrote a very interesting story that could maybe use more horse words to clue the reader in to what is happening and why. Hopefully some of the feedback has been useful!