Rainbow Dash descended past the final layer of silk...
And it was so dark that—at first—she felt that her pendant wasn't piercing anything. All she saw was the needle-thin limbs of the orb-weavers clinging to her gondola, but beyond that was utter blackness. An absurd fear gripped her heart: that if her escorts were to drop her, she might fall forever into an unfathomable abyss.
There was no sign of her friends—but she knew that they were dangling out there somewhere in the great everlasting dark.
There was no sign of Merula either. She had vanished a seemly century above, riding her tunnel-weaver into the chaotic unknown. Perhaps this place was too holy for an All-Singer to present herself.
The silence was deaffening. For the throneroom of a God Tier Songstress, it was alarmingly quiet. In theory, the cushions of silk that capped-off the chamber above must have acted as a sound-proof buffer. Rainbow became grotesquely aware of the slimy sounds of her own swallowing throat—and the shifts and groans of her inner organs between each heartbeat.
She didn't dare speak—and yet she did so anyway. Each murmur resembled a gunshot, echoing outward into the blackness with sonic intensity:
"Rarity...?" Rainbow tried whispering quieter, but even that didn't help that much. "Rarity, what's... what is out there?"
In her peripheral, the shape of a pensive unicorn materialized. Her pale muzzle moved: "It... it is beautiful... delicate... complex—yet majestic."
Applejack's voice drawled across the shadows, comforting Rainbow Dash. "Reckon you could be a mite bit less poetic, Rares?"
"It is not unlike a cathedral building," Rarity declared. "With silken beams for rafters... looming inward at sharp degrees." She swallowed. "There are... constructs dangling from each lattice, hanging low from the domed ceiling."
"Constructs?" Rainbow Dash asked.
Rarity's blue eyes reflected her ruby pendant. "Not unlike the artifice that Merula used to communicate with you, darling." She gestured. "Albeit... now there are dozens of them... hundreds of them... all facing inward from where we're suspended."
Twilight Sparkle's voice pierced the ghostly moment: "She was prepared for us."
"She was prepared for something alright!" Pinkie added.
Rainbow tilted forward, hesitantly peering into the great dark. "Uhhh... Fluttershy...?"
"She's here, Rainbow Dash," Fluttershy said.
"Okay..." Rainbow's eyes narrowed. "Where?"
"Beneath," was all Fluttershy said.
Rainbow blinked curiously at that. It was then that she noticed something... or felt something. There was a warm current to the room, circling and billowing ever so slowly. What's more, Rainbow felt a flutter to her bangs—rhythmically repeating itself in flouncing motions. She leaned back slightly, and the hairs on the back of her neck felt the same rush of air, cycling in perfect cadence throughout the blacker-than-black chamber.
"Uhhhh... Fluttershy?" she rasped. "Do spiders breathe?"
Fluttershy gave her a dumb look. "Do you breathe?"
Rainbow merely bit her lip. Soon after, her ears tickled with something. It sounded at first like a hiss... then mutated into a slur. She realized it was circling around her, echoing with great intensity. And yet—due to the soundproof nature of that innermost chamber—it sounded just as quiet as a lone moth breathing down her neck. She remembered Rarity's description of the constructs, and she suspected that every silken "voice box" suspended above was working to produce the same discernible sound with triangulated precision. Slowly—one syllable at a time—the reverberations came together, solidifying into phonetic clarity.
"Aust... trae... oh..."
Rainbow Dash took a bold breath... then produced an even bolder voice.
"I am here, Abaddon," she proclaimed to the darkness. "My name is Rainbow Dash... and I am the Austraeoh."
Her mane flounced more heavily. She felt her bangs being pulled forward, then being pushed right back before repeating. The hissing sound deepened, centering upon a raspy core.
"The Austraeoh comes in darkest winter. In great labor have we pulled the strings taut so that the shattering of the circles could come to a glorious recompense."
Twilight and Applejack looked all around, seeking the source of the voice. As the words swirled onward they increased in volume, although there was a persistent sense of fatigue and weakness clinging to every refrain.
"In soundless dreams I've sampled symphonies, sporadic glimpses of the sonic shades. The spectrum has preserved the codex clean, and Ilrifa's cyclical gift made true."
Rainbow breathed evenly. It had been a full three minutes since she first descended into that darkest dome, and at last her eyes were adjusting to the degree to which her ruby light pierced the otherwise impermeable shadow. She leaned forward, staring downward from the edge of her gondola. It was then that she discerned lines... and those lines formed dappled textures. They stretched outward from a nebulous center below in eight directions, although Rainbow could not tell where they ended. She could see where they began, and that was where Rainbow Dash made out the dirty shades of an incalculably large surface of hair—with patches of leprotic imperfections at random intervals. The joints between limbs were as big as houses, and towards the front of an ice-still cranium there lingered pronounced pedipalps—like those belonging to a titanic brown recluse. The hulking body sat like stone at the bottom of a well, occupying the entire foundation and maintaining a modicum of ballet grace while the voice kept spinning cyclonically across the constructs above.
"Now as the legions of chaos battle for the sarcophagus' harmonic gem, a true seed of order makes its way here, a blessing of yore, blessed by Penumbra."
Rainbow Dash couldn't help but pivot the angle of her pendant's glow. She caught eight glistening spots across the length of a football field—anterior and posterior eyes, glossed blind from years of lingering in the dark foundation of the forsaken city.
"Many ballads have been sung but only one remains unfinished, and it beckons."
Rainbow lingered still, her breath thin.
"The Spectral symphony is near an end. Ilrifa's contribution: a solo."
So she's massive. Neat!
So she is absolutely huge!
You know what you do with those hundreds of voice boxes?
Bass cannon.
...Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig spooder.
Musical ha! I don't know. What? I just confused myself. I don't know how or why, but I did.
What the hell did she eat to get that big?
Along came a spider...
A Seer of Space perhaps?
Anyone else getting flashbacks to the spider boss from Twilight Princess, just on an incomprehensibly larger scale?
Flesh killing venom. I wonder what a spider her size could do to a dragon.
On the plus side, she speaks... whatever the hell the default language in Equestria is, so Sera and WC will be able to understand her.
-Through the path long forgotten, into the darkness long begotten. Ofolrodi.
8605194
It looks like they prepared something similar to what Merula used to communicate with Dash, as seen here on this line.
8605240
Yeah, the artificial vocal chords.
Wouldn't help much if she was using them to speak another language while communicating with Dash in some other method.
But she's not, she's using them to speak the default language of the shard they call home.
It just makes me wonder what the central language is?
Also kinda makes me wonder why there was no language gap when Dash made landfall at Kihutaja way back in Ynanhluutr.
One would assume that with the amount of time the two continents have been out of contact, there would be a pretty major shift in dialect.
Heck, the only other languages Dash has heard spoken are Xonan, Snowblood and Moonwhinny. Considering the distances and locales she's travelled through, that number should be at least a little higher.
She's encountered the turtle of Alafreo, the moose and deer of Val Roa, the Naga and Goblins on the Western continent alone.
Entering Rohbreddan should have been like being dropped in a foreign country with no inkling of the native tongue at all.
This is all probably too little too late to think about, but it just kinda crept into my head then.
If the shard is a planet sized chunk of a larger ring, then by the standards of our big blue ball, the language diversity should be enormous.
Fuck man, that's a big spider. A biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig spider.
8605256
I think it was mentioned real early on in Ynanhluutr that Verlaxion gave the Rohbreddenites their alphabet, which implies that everyone speaks the same language because the Divines speak that language. And honestly, if a bunch of giant magic fire-lizards spoke a language, wouldn't you want to speak it too?
No idea how the injection is supposed to work, but one is clear: she won't bite Rainbow.
8605123
Screw the bass, let her yodel!
So that's the actual spoder queen...and she is terrifying
And what of the Eljunbyro Ensemble?
"A solo," Abandon breathed. "Played ... by our wonderful guest performer Octavia."
Yup, thats a big dissolve everything venom spider.
So, playlist will be Radiohead, Cash, and Sia?
Maybe finish off with the cute fluffy bunnies from Art Garfunkle, or Monty Python?
8605256
Come to think of it. I seem to remember early on some of the first ponies she met outside Equestria having very thick accents that she at first couldn't understand. If I remember correctly that could imply that she's gotten good at understanding slightly different variations on "baseline" Equestrian. But then the ghostly mane 6 probably would have mentioned that change in the language. Soooo. Yeah, good point. It is all one language.
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memegenerator.net/img/instances/34764954/my-mom.jpg
A brown Recluse hm....This is definitely going to hurt I just hope the information gained is worth the pain that Rainbow will undoubtedly be going through soon.
Jesus fuck Christ on a bike, no.
An alliterative spider, too.
8605684
Remember that Abbadon was alive and active on Urohringr's version of the Internet, and those memetic habits never truly die.
She will take her shitposting oppurtunities where ever she gets them in memoriam of those days, no matter how small.
8605719
Abbadon was active on the Urohringr wide web
8605256
8605531
8605259
There are three total linguistic controller entities on plane:
The Ancient Pegasi
The Dragon Divines
The Harmonic Alicorns
Each of these controlling influences have immortalized persistency that prevent extreme linguistic drift, and it is further helped by all the species of Pre-Sundering-Urohringr having had a single language, for a given set of vocal cords, and a single universal written language.
The Ancient Pegasi and pockets of the other resident visiting species barely survived the Sundering, the Dragon Divines were hatched at some point afterwards, and the Alicorns arrived to the party last and adapted their forms and language to the first dominant natives they met before saying hello to everyone on both twilit sides of the plane, including Abaddon.
So, if there was linguistic drift, it was done across the board as the Alicorns spent countless millenia manually gene-splicing repairs into the survivor colonies and shepherding the results across the planes, before finally realizing they were dying off from old age and splitting into children due to the chaotic-warped space the plane was in, at which point they were alarmed to realize they only had enough untainted Harmonic-Plains alicorn-power left to light up one side of the plane in a massive sacrificial ritual spell.
So, it's a big friggen mess and everyone of the immortals is to blame for different ways the entire plane is still following a single linguistic evolutionary drift, except the Xonans somehow.
8605395
Or the Odrsjot Orchestra?
This series really needs guest artists.
With as deep as these caverns go, I'm surprised we're not touching the machine layer.
The nope to end all nopes.
Sheeesh. Flynn would probably have a stroke.
Also, how the hell is this spider going to bite her to instil her with magic mojo? It sounds like she could more easily just inhale her without noticing.
8605684
In iambic pentameter, even.
8605741
there are three groups that speak different languages that Dash has encountered during her travels.
Xonans, Snowbloods and Sarosians.
The Sarosian's are bilingual though.
durandal.dnsalias.net/imgur/ron.jpg
Rainbow Dash has become All-Might.
8605354
You said it. But wait, does that make you the spider princess?
And here we go
05/07/2018
17:46 UTC
Probably more important quotes in this chapter, but this line from Shy killed me. Underrated sassmaster.
Yup, she’s massive. I saw that coming. We expected no less.
I'd be pretty funny if she was tinny
8606213
...oh...wow...
I didn’t even catch that. Nice one.
Well. She's titanic. It's probably a good thing she set the ball rolling and then set to hibernation. There's no easy way to feed creatures as big as Abbadon.
Hoo boy, this is gonna get complicated quick.
Also holy fuck a giant spider what the actual hell
In Rainbow's defense, the way spiders breathe is pretty unique, and probably wouldn't result on air circulating like that. They, like insects, don't have muscled lungs, and have to move to circulate air. To have air moving rythmically back and forth like that Abbadon must be like, swaying in a hammock or something...
I can see why RD likes her