Moondancer's Venture

[twilightpony]

I received another letter from Moondancer this morning -- in it she wrote that I should go find my copy of Haycartes -- Treatise on Ponies and leave it open on my reading table. So I pulled my copy off the shelf, opened it up to a random page and a few hours later there she was! She's in the Crystal Empire and heading north with Lemon Hearts to look for the giant windigo of legend, Winter! She said it takes some doing to get to the _right_ copy of the book she's teleporting to. While she was getting the hang of it, she even popped up in a book somepony else was reading. Fortunately, the pony was just flipping pages idly and didn't notice her. We had a good laugh over that!

She didn't appear long. The Haycartes spell is hard enough without stretching it halfway across Equestria! She said she'd spent a few days researching and planning her journey in the Crystal Empire Library and she was all set to go, north of Yakyakistan and into Equestria incognita! I tried to tell her to be careful, but, well, ponies. They're either running from danger in a panic or charging into it at full gallop and teeth bared. They'll be fine.

Comments

[algernon97]

Looks like Moondancer's going off on an adventure.

Who knows what she'll find in the frozen wastes of the north. Here's hoping her adventure turns out better (and is more successful) than the ones the characters in "The Thing"/"At the Mountains of Madness" had.

[twilightpony]

I quickly ran my hoof through the index in my brand new Royal Cartographer Society Atlas of Equestria and I'm happy to report that there are no "mountains of madness" in Equestria. Just thinking about meeting an entity that is so weird and unidentifiable as to be called "The Thing" is enough to give a pony nightmares!

[algernon97]

"The Thing" is as follows: An alien organism that can perfectly imitate any living organism it "assimilates." It has no morality as we know it. Its sole purpose is to assimilate every living creature in the world. If exposed, it will change the form it is using into a monstrous amalgamation of many different creatures it has assimilated over the course of its life, and attacks. If it touches you, you are dead, because the moment that it touches an organism, the cells of The Thing instantly begin to assimilate it.

And because it is a perfect imitation, you have no way of knowing who is a Thing and who isn't, at least, none that are fast.

And the only way to kill The Thing is to destroy every molecule of it.

In the tale, twelve scientists/pilots in the antarctic find a dog in the frozen wastes.

Only two of them survive, and one of them might be The Thing. They sit and wait for help to come as their research station burns into the night.

[twilightpony]

You are trying to give me nightmares. It won't work! My only connection to your world is words on the wall of a rock stable. I'm as safe as safe a pony can be. And for a fail-safe, I have Luna watching over the dreamscape. Equestria -- still Thing free! (mad laughter)

Changelings are bad enough. (shudder)

OK, "antarctic" has nothing to do with ants, curves or nervous tics. It's convenient that your world somehow doubles as a dictionary.

[algernon97]

The Thing, thankfully, is just a story.

Thankfully.

[twilightpony]

So was Daring Do!

[algernon97]

Think of it this way:

If it was real, why would it let the survivor tell the story?

[twilightpony]

Because people are curious and would go look for themselves? Or was that cats? No, no, you must be right, it's just another Headless Horse tale.

[algernon97]

Yes. It'll make quite a good campfire story should you ever have a sleepover or go camping shouldn't it?

And after all, nothing like The Thing can possibly exist, right?

[twilightpony]

I might have to adapt it to Equestria to make it believable... the Thing could be a flesh-eating changeling. But to be a good campfire scare story, it also has to be ridiculous in some way too. Hmmmm.

OK, I have it! It could eat hair. The Thing would leave it's victims cold, bald and hairless. And when it ate enough hair, it would divide and there would be two of them! They would take up snatching ponies away to be farmed for their hair, and replacing them with changelings. Starting with the spa. Finally, every pony here, except you, is a changeling (then we jump on Rarity).

[flareblitzfury]

Wow! That's pretty amazing!

[twilightpony]

She found a use for that spell combination. I doubt it will catch on when a pony can send a carefully thought-out letter instead. And carrying around a book in case somepony might want to talk to you seems impractical.

[flareblitzfury]

Yeah.