17. Epilogue: What A Piece Of Work Is A Man!
The Conversion Bureau
HUMAN
in Equestria
By Chatoyance
17. Epilogue: What A Piece Of Work Is A Man!
Special thanks to my spouse Aedina for her assistance with historically accurate Elizabethan speech.
Perhaps sixty... no, seventy. Sixty-five. About sixty-five people, heading for the main gate. That was just about everyone. No, if he was honest with himself, it was everyone. Everyone except Liliane, and that old low-born pedo, Roman.
Stefan Albrecht Bettencourt stared out of his office window, in the corner of his magnificent Tudor-styled mansion, in the prime grounds to the left of the gate, right by the main cobblestone road that ran the length of the fortress. Below, the last of the inhabitants queued up to leave in small groups escorted by royal stallion guards in armor. Each group of humans would be placed on a pegasus-drawn carriage, to be taken to Canterlot, where, still under guard, they would be escorted to the princesses.
And then they would be changed.
This was always the problem with war - losing. They had tried. Their plan had been sound, their strategy solid. The ruling families of earth had retained their human bodies - and most importantly, their hands. Hands were the secret. Hands were the source of all power.
Celestia had known that, Stefan felt sure. She was wily, clever, the ultimate schemer. With hands, a human could work alone, build in secret, construct and make and manufacture in isolation. Hands made it possible for one man to craft bullets in a shack, or make explosives all by himself. Hands allowed a gun to be made by a single man in a single room if need be - or a sword, or a knife, or a bomb.
That was undoubtedly why she had chosen ponies out of all the creatures of the earth to duplicate. There was no way to know precisely what time periods that the solar monarch had seen through her little dimensional peep-holes. But there had been hints. Bettencourt had gotten a report that suggested that Celestia had likely first viewed the earth sometime during the Late Miocene. Dissections of pegasai had revealed elements that resembled that of Pilohippus, blended in with later earthly equines.
Celestia was a thief. She stole her universe from peeping at earth. She could have made humans, they existed, or at least their ancestors did, but she chose equines. There could be only one reason.
Hooves were clumsy. They had no thumbs, no opposing grasp. Equines lived in herds, they moved as one. Celestia had deliberately chosen a species to raise up and make intelligent that could not work alone. Her ponies were forced by necessity to work together to accomplish anything meaningful. Even the unicorns, with their telekinesis - a single horn was worth a dozen hands - were dependent on the pegasai and the earthponies. Unicorns were physically weak and couldn't pull or push or dig like earthponies. They couldn't transport materials long distances over difficult terrain like pegasai. But they could do fine detail work.
Three breeds, each utterly needing the other, and every pony always needing to be helped with any job by the hooves of others. Individually clumsy creatures that collectively could do anything. That was deliberate. That... was genius.
All rebellion starts with the individual, alone. It spreads like fire, consuming hearts and minds, until a new order is created, or the rebels are killed off. The rise and fall of empires, born of individual aspiration and secrecy and individual power.
But in Equestria, there was no hope for ambition. Secrecy was impossible in a world where no creature could go it alone, where entire communities were forced to do everything in the open. Celestia was crafty. Celestia was smart.
And Celestia had won.
Thirty. Thirty or so left. The rest had already passed through the gate. Stefan sipped his coffee. It was cold - Bertarelli made a terrible butler. He was weak and spoiled. Stefan didn't feel like chewing him out right at the moment. He needed to see the last one. He needed to see the last traitor to the human race pass through that gate.
Hooves and a mind bent towards peace. Towards harmony and total cooperation. Celestia was a communist. A socialist. These broken philosophies had failed on earth, because humans were naturally ambitious. They needed to have a sense of self-importance, of self-benefit. Humans could never work toward a collective, or toward a common good - not without incentives. Not without personal gain. Communism collapsed because every man wants to get his own piece of the pie.
Only natural. A hunter gatherer needs to hunt, to win, to achieve.
Celestia solved the problem by eliminating Nature. Ponies were designed, deliberately, to care about the common good. They were driven to collective solutions. There was no space in their passions for conquest. For domination. For rulership.
Alexander would have slit his own throat before going pony. Napoleon would have shot himself in the head. Those were men. Those were the flowers, the glories of humanity. They were remembered because they were worth remembering. They rose to power, as real men do, and sat alone upon their thrones.
Ponies never do anything alone.
"ROMAN!" There were only ten left at the gate, out the window. "ROMAN! Get your sorry ass in here, you baby-fucking bastard! ROMAAAAN!" Stefan had no time to go looking for his telescope. The mansion had come with one, built by some Royal Pony Telescope Maker or somesuch. It was primitive, a simple refractor, lenses and a tube. It looked pretty, gold and gems and exotic woods, but it had pissed Stefan off. Now he wished he knew where it had been put.
"ROOOMMMMAAAAANNN!" The last three traitors were starting to exit the Masada. Wait. That coat. That was the butler coat with the overly large sleeves, designed for diamond dogs. Stefan knew that coat. That was Bertarelli! Bertarelli was the last human out the gate! That filthy bastard had run off and joined the line!
Bettencourt sat down in a huff, his back turned to the window. He stared at the cold coffee in the cup in front of him. The last cup that would ever be served to him appropriately. There were no more servants now. Roman Bertarelli had gone off to join the ponies. It was just him and Liliane now. In the vast entirety of the Human Masada, it was just him... and Liliane. Alone, in a walled fortress of empty mansions.
Stefan Bettencourt walked the length of the enormous fortress. It had been built in a day, he had been informed. Magic. An army of royal unicorns and top-level spells. The side of a mountain had conveniently reformed itself into a hundred and one buildings and a massive, thick wall.
On day two, earthponies did all the gardening. Bettencourt stared up at a two-hundred foot tall tree that stood on a small island in the middle of the stone canal that divided the masada. Little bridges led to the decorative island, where pleasant benches stood among the flowers. It had all been grown in one, single day.
Stefan shook his head. Hands. Fingers. Technology.
This magic, this programmable thaumatic energy was a vastly superior technology to anything humanity had ever developed. Or ever would have developed. All the stuff had run out. That is what killed the earth. The stuff ran out. Fuel and metals and gasses increasingly difficult to extract, requiring more and more energy to dig or pump out than what was gained. A death spiral of ever increasing consumption, a planet more pit mine than flat land.
Entropy. Man had always been doomed by entropy, by stuff running out. Life, materials, time.
And along comes these ponies, these horrible aliens, and they have it all. A universe where nothing ever runs out, but is replenished over time. Where rocks grow from sand, where trees can be grown in a day, where even the life force itself cannot be lost. Extropy. Alien beings from a universe of extropy. A fairyland of neverending surplus. Post-scarcity was too pale a term.
And that is what Stefan Bettencourt hated the most. He kicked the magically grown tree. Not hard. He didn't want to have to beg some goddamn unicorn to mend a broken toe.
In the old universe, in Mundis, on earth, scarcity meant that a man could become a god by collecting and defending the biggest pile of stuff. That was earthly life, and the glory of Man defined. He who ruled was he with the most stuff. Or at least the most control over stuff, which amounted to the same thing. It took fire. It took a killer will and a predator's spirit.
On earth, you were poor if you cared more about people than power. The equation was simple, the truth absolute. Stuff was survival - it was a material world and there was never enough of anything to go around.
Stefan Albrecht Bettencourt had been born, bred and raised to be the ultimate human predator, and he was proud of it. He had risen to the highest position possible, above presidents and ministers, above kings, above emperors, above god - he had become the commander in chief, the chief executive officer of the corporation of Mankind itself.
And now it was gone.
Gone like the earth. Stefan moved away from the tree, shuffling along the too-perfect cobblestones. Gone like the old universe of struggle and never enough. Gone like all the old books and movies about tough men with guns and swords and bombs taking what was rightfully theirs through force of arms and strength of conviction.
There was nothing to conquer in Equestria. Stefan walked through the entrance of the Muleskinner Club. The door had been left open, already autumn leaves were scattered inside the empty, dark building. The season had just changed, and the pegasai were working extra hard to produce winds so that seeds could find new ground to fall on, and spores could drift and so alien leaves could invade a human space.
Bettencourt had lived to reach the top. In Equestria that spot was filled, forever and ever, by immortal goddesses. Trying to control material goods was pointless. Gold? Any earthpony could go out in the desert and begin growing gold ore into mountains of the stuff. Jewels? The same problem. Food? Pork bellies? - they were all vegetarian!
There had been only one path to rulership, one commodity that Man could control here that the ponies couldn't do better.
Life and death. Ponies could be hurt, ponies could be killed. They didn't die forever, apparently, but death still meant parting, and it still hurt. Man could inflict suffering, which was always the foundation of every empire, and every law. Orders and commands meant nothing without a man with a gun or a sword or a fist to insist on obedience. All power derives from suffering - whether through denial of stuff, or denial of life and limb.
It would have worked. That pony bitch had taken the power to kill and to hurt from Man in that damn Covenant, but... the diamond dogs were free. They had gotten in by themselves, they had sneaked into Equestria somehow, and Celestia hadn't been able to put governors on them. They learned quickly, and they ate meat. The dogs had loved using the guns. It made them feel powerful.
If things had worked out, Bettencourt had enjoyed visions of the dogs dressed in Napoleonic uniforms, parading around his castle. His palace. Lord Bettencourt of Humanestria.
It had all gone south the moment that bitch, that filth, Sloane, Sloane Cameron decided she wanted bacon now. It wasn't hers to have. All the bacon was his to give or withhold. Sloane had let a diamond dog kill a pig with a gun, because she refused to believe in animal souls. That betrayal had ended any hope of a human empire within Equestria.
Stefan searched the cabinet for liquor. Nothing, the bastards. They drank it all. Probably while making the decision to leave, to go pony. Rats leaving a sinking ship. Rats, not men, not ponies, the lot of them.
Adam and Eve. That was who he and Liliane were, now. The bible had gotten it wrong - actually, the bible had gotten everything wrong. Revelations had no pony paradise in it. But it had gotten its books out of order. Stefan laughed, leaning on the bar, in the dim light. The bible needed to be read in reverse. It didn't begin with Adam and Eve, it ended with them. In the garden. In the garden.
In the forest.
Stefan Bettencourt left the bar, and began to walk, then run, back to his mansion. Before he had exited the Muleskinner, he stopped to grab one of the scrolls from the little box over the mantle. Nobody had bothered to summon Celestia this year, or last year for that matter, so she contractually had to appear. Adam and Eve.
Stefan's heart beat fast as he ran, his eyes sparkling with the rush of decision and the triumph of Will.
"How canst YOU, who do profess to cherish life so, who doth cleave to law and reason above even thine own land and sun, countenance such as this?" Tiny flecks of foam, an uncommon sight, dotted Luna's muzzle.
Since her return, it was rare for the night princess to display open anger toward her sister. The lesson of centuries past weighed always upon her, and the knowledge of her own weakness of temper was a constant shame. Just as an obsessive clutching at order was her sister's wound from the time of Discord, so anger and impatient desperation was hers.
Luna turned away from her sister. She knew that look too well, the look on her sister's muzzle. "Madness and delirium be this, and the wail of spoiled foals!" The nocturnal diarch suddenly turned back to face Celestia. "No goodly parent thee, to encourage thy foals to gallop into the very throat of hungry doom!"
Celestia waited for the fire to lessen in her sibling's eyes before she finally spoke. "Luna... they are not foals. They are adults and more than this - they are peers. Their choice is not ours to take from them, whatever we may think."
"PEERS?" Luna was aghast. "Speak thou not such drivel, sister! These hoofless, churlish, dog-hearted, fustilarian, beslubbering, motley-minded, fen-sucked, loggerheaded, ill-nurtured, artless and errant, tardy-gaited, clapper-clawed, guts-griping, miscreant, pottle-deep onion-eyed jackanapes NAY ARE PEERS!"
Celestia dug a small furrow in the soil of the path. She kindly waited for her younger sister to regain herself. "I hear that you care, and that this bothers you deeply, I truly do hear you." The solar diarch raised her head and studied her sister's troubled expression. "You begged me not to keep my promise, to just once let something go. You warned me that the humans would be a greater danger than dragons, and more temperamental than griffons. You suffered for my determination to save these creatures. I know it has been so very hard on you."
Luna looked almost as if she might cry.
"Yet, when the time came, you were there for me, fully involved." Celestia looked down at her little furrow. "You became their champion, even more than I in some ways. Where I became weary of the humans, you seemed to find in them something sympathetic, something that clearly moved you deeply. I must always keep my promises, and so I have, but you truly had love for these strange beasts. I acknowledge this.
"But sister, Luna..." Celestia once again fixed her eyes on those of her quietly weeping sibling. "Stefan and Liliane were the royalty of their world. Their place in the weft of things was, in human terms, the same as ours. In that one respect, they are truly peers."
"You are sending them to their death. You know that. How can you do that?" Luna was crying now, and the loss of all pretense of royal speech made the night princess's quiet words seem louder than her previous outburst.
Celestia pressed close, and embraced her little sister with her neck and shoulder. "I could ponify them. I could change them, against their will, and they would be happy for it. They would awaken from their arrogance and madness, and they would weep with shame at their previous petulance and pride. They would thank us both for saving them from themselves, and rightfully too. What they are doing truly is nothing more than a fatal foal's tantrum."
Luna's head was tucked close, her cheek warm against her sister's barrel. "Then do it. Let me do it. Please, sister. Please."
Celestia sighed. "You know I cannot, because I am bound by agreement. I know you find that reason insufficient, and it is true that in this case it is discompassionate, even despicably cruel. But, Luna, if I do not honor their choice here, how am I different than our brother who took all choice away?"
"You are not Discord! You will never become Discord! It's not the same thing!" Luna was crying again.
"It is the same thing, to me." Celestia gently rubbed her head against her sister. "Either I honor the free will of my subjects, or I do not. Ponification must be a choice, and so we must accept when that choice is rejected. I have to live with this fact."
"Thou dost maketh me also to live with this choice of thine." Luna sniffed. "And that isn't fair."
"I... I know. I'm sorry."
Luna stepped back and stared at her older sister with intense, wounded eyes. "Wouldst thou call us rebel and traitor should we take our own conscience and save these humans from their own folly? Thy promise was to save humanity, yet here thou dost see fit to watch it perish without reason or hope of survival. What then, if we choose to fulfill thy promise for thee, if thy hoof be so truly bound? Wouldst thee make lunar aspect of us again for such?"
"LUNA!" Celestia was visibly hurt, and instantly the princess of the night felt shame for her words.
"Tia... I... I'm sorry... I..."
Celestia shook her head, her glowing mane of thaumatic force rippling like a flame. "No. No, Luna, shhh, shhh... It is I who should be sorry. I put you in this place, I'm the reason you have to even deal with it at all."
The two immortal sisters stood silently for a while.
"In answer..." Celestia studied her little furrow again. "...no. I would not do anything at all to you. Not ever again. I can never bear to make that choice again." Celestia looked up and tried to smile. "Which is why I have to depend on you to make whatever choice you think is right, even if I disagree with it, and trust in the good heart of my beloved sister."
The chariot was circling overhead. The pegasai pulling it followed the pointing hand of the human male. The chariot made a pass over the forest, over the Everfree, before arcing back towards where the princesses stood. Both regents watched in silence as the pegasus chariot came in for a landing, and finally to a stop.
"Come to see us off. Glad to be rid of us, I expect!" Stefan Bettencourt seemed to be in a jolly mood. If he was afraid, as he should be, he did not show it. Neither did his wife, Liliane.
"Greetings, chief executive officer Bettencourt, missus Bettencourt." Celestia gave a slight bow with her neck. "Welcome to the entrance of the Everfree forest."
"Oh, look, it's Luna!" Liliane Bettencourt held out her hand, unthinkingly, then withdrew it. "Sorry. It is very good to see you again, princess." Luna could not discern any falseness to the statement. Either it was true, or Liliane Bettencourt was astonishingly consummate at the art of diplomacy.
"So, ready for a little stroll, my dear?" Stefan took his wife's arm. Neither of them were dressed for survival in a dangerous chaotic zone of distressed reality. Stefan wore his finest suit, Liliane a dress appropriate to an ambassadorial gathering.
"Stefan Bettencourt! This we do say is madness on thy part!" Luna stared deeply into the human's small eyes. "Yon Everfree is no place for strolling, but rather for running, and if needful, hiding. Thou art not prepared for such excursion, neither art thee weighed down with sustenance and drink! We see not any shelter or bedding in thy keeping, nor tool nor even pillow for thy head." Luna brought her face close to that of the little man before her. "Thy progress is folly and death. Save thy mare and thyself, Stefan Bettencourt! I would make of thee both proper citizens and welcome thee with open hooves."
Luna pulled back, her eyes pools of sadness. "We beg thee."
"Nothin' doing, right sweetheart?" Stefan pulled his wife closer. Liliane nodded, assenting. "See, princess, me and the missus here are going to go into that forest there. You know why?"
Luna shook her head. The act was incomprehensible. It was suicide. There wasn't even a word in Equestrian for suicide.
Stefan grinned. "Because that isn't Equestria in there. I've been studying. The Everfree is a scar on reality itself, it's a place other than your realm. It's a land apart, one that you can't control, and one that you and your sister don't hold sway over. It's free for the taking, a fresh new land to conquer. I figure it's Eden, in there. The Garden Of Eden, and I'm Adam, and this is my wife Eve." Stefan laughed. "Say hello, Eve!"
Liliane giggled. "Hello!"
"Now I reckon that anything can happen in there. That's what I've heard, anyway." Stefan studied the dark, gloomy forest. "Anything. Things you don't know about. Things you can't explain. Things even you and your sister don't understand. I look at that forest, and you know what I see?"
Luna could only stand and watch. A tear trickled down her cheek.
"I see a fixer-up opportunity! I see empire, I see a new start for Mankind. Adam and Eve, starting over, fresh, in the Garden of Eden. You wouldn't know about that. It's not for ponies, no offense."
Luna nodded. Not once did either Stefan, or Liliane, show the slightest fear. For all her insults, Luna knew the humans weren't stupid. The two understood the truth, yet they acted like this. It was insane, yes, but it was also courageous in a way that no Equestrian had ever been.
Finally, Luna found words. At first they were halting, but they grew stronger. "Thou... thou art old. Sixty and more in the years of vanished earth thou art, and thou hast not even a cane to support thee."
Liliane Bettencourt smiled. "We had our ova and sperm stored until we were ready to have..." For a moment, she looked away. "We'll manage."
"We would give thee a gift in parting, Bettencourts. We offer thee renewed youth. If truly thou dost intend to brave the Everfree, grant us leave to give unto thee stout limbs and a strong heart to face it with." Tears ran nakedly down the muzzle of the princess of the night.
Stefan conferred with his wife. "As long as you don't turn us into ponies, we don't see any harm in that. We accept, graciously."
Celestia watched, as Luna's long horn shimmered with silvern light. Ribbons of force licked like tongues over the two humans, and decades of decay melted away. It was a blatant, untenable violation of the Covenant, of law and order and propriety, but Celestia had just given her word to her sister that she would do nothing. The transgression ate at her, burned her, but Celestia bit her lip and forced herself to remain still.
Luna withdrew her power. "It is done. Blessed be thou in body and spirit, and may thy days be long and good."
Liliane gave a small bow. "Thank you princess."
"I think it's time, Liliane. We're wearing out our welcome." Stefan Bettencourt, the last man in Equestria, held the hand of his wife, the last woman. "I should probably say something, shouldn't I? Propriety must be maintained, after all."
Stefan cleared his throat, and then recited "What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an Angel! In apprehension how like a God!"
"Just lovely. I always did enjoy your speaking voice." Liliane squeezed her husband's hand. It felt young.
"Good day, princesses. Celestia. Luna." Stefan nodded a farewell, and then he and his wife stepped forward upon the rough, pebbly trail.
The two last humans stopped, briefly, at the boundary of the forest. They looked at each other, and then marched ahead, as if they were going on a picnic.
A few minutes later, the forest enveloped them, and the only thing that remained were their shoe prints in the dirt.
Celestia and Luna, and the team of Pegasai stood and silently stared after the passing of the Bettencourts for some time.
Eventually, Celestia directed the chariot team to return to Canterlot. For some time, after they left, Celestia stood where the chariot had been, and studied her sister from a distance. Luna cried, softly, but in time, the storm passed.
"Comest thee home, dearest Luna, thy hearth and bed await thee, and good ponies all to cheer thy wounded heart." Celestia's sad eyes followed her sister as she approached.
"You... you should talk like that more often." Luna pressed herself into her sister. "It was nice to hear."
"I love you, little sister."
"I love you too."
A brilliant gold and silver light fought the very sun for a few moments, and when the brilliance faded to a point and vanished, the path was empty, and open, and only the impressions of hooves and shoes remained.
The End
The Lost In The Herd Series:
One: The Big Respawn,
Two: Euphrosyne Unchained,
Three: Letters From Home,
Four: Teacup, Down On The Farm
The Conversion Bureau Novels:
27 Ounces: A story of eight and one half ponies
The Taste Of Grass
The Conversion Bureau: Code Majeste
The Conversion Bureau: The 800 Year Promise
The Conversion Bureau: Going Pony
The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society!
Recombinant 63: A Conversion Bureau Story
HUMAN in Equestria: A Conversion Bureau Story
The PER: Michelson and Morely
Little Blue Cat
Cross The Amazon
Adrift Off Fiddler's Green: The Final Conversion Bureau Story
The Short Stories:
Her Last Possession
The Conversion Bureau: PER Equitum
The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe
Tales Of Los Pegasus
The Poly Little Pony
The very first and original
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Optimalverse Works:
Friendship Is Optimal: Caelum Est Conterrens
Leftovers: A Friendship Is Optimal Story
IMPLACABLE
My Life In Fimbria
Injectorverse Works:
I.D. - That Indestructible Something
The More Conventional Fanfics:
The Ice Cream Pony Summer
Around The Bend
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That's a sweet ending. In my headcanon, they will find a rift in the Everfree and found a new world where they will rule with iron fists, all trembling before them in despair.
Also, intentional reference to Mitchell?
3055184
Hee!
In my headcanon, there is a burping owlbear that will spend the rest of its life searching the Everfree for more of the tasty, hairless sweet-pigs.
What a strange sensation, to have part of my brain cheering Stefan on, while the other part shakes its head and yells "You idiot!"
3055184
And then the Draka popped out of a molehole, and showed them what it was to truly dominate.
RIP Stefan. You died as who you are, and that's more than most can claim.
It's a shame that who you are is a complete and total tool.
3055220
This made me laugh - literally - out loud.
Piece of work is right. Those two imbeciles would be lucky to get to be owl-bear chow...in my head-canon, a swarm of parasprites would be enjoying the jerky harvest.
Hmm. I find this to be quite intriguing. What they are doing is immensely stupid. From their recent life experience, they know of a group of children who encountered a fatally dangerous creature in their brief stroll of the forest. In addition, they have been pampered their entire lives. They are not hardy survivors with lots of wilderness survival skills -- I would rather enter the Everfree with a few Amazon-born tribesman than an entire platoon of delusions-of-ubermenschdom Bettencourts, as with the former we would stand a chance of survival. On the other hand, The Fool is the 0th Arcana for a reason. Innocence and ignorance is fertile ground. Maybe they do have a chance at a satisfying life, though, provided that they learn some humility and make a friend or two. I'll bet Liliane would get along splendidly with Mr. Magnet. Who knows, maybe they could find The Ruins of the Castle of The Royal Pony Sisters (TRofCofRPS) and make some discoveries that no pony other than the sisters themselves would have ever seen, and learn things that no modern pony knows.
Or they'd get lost and end up in Ponyville. That would make for an interesting story, and for all involved parties.
3055213
It's what he wanted. If I believed he was honestly deluded and crazy, I'd be for Luna taking matters into her own hooves, but that was very obviously a conscious decision.
3055375
They're going to die of course, and they know it. They just want to go out on their own terms - free.
3055220
He was, but every person on the planet wears a lot of different masks. Hero to some, villain to others. A tool perhaps, but one that can't hurt anybody anymore, so it does no harm to honor the part of him that was brave and unyielding in the face of adversity.
This chapter, as a whole, continues the trend of me finding Luna infinitely preferable to Celestia - in the TCB-verse, anyway. Her actions are motivated purely by compassion, in contrast to Celestia, whose actions seem mostly motivated by... well, faint disgust, really. I may not always agree with a person motivated by love, but I'll never hate them for it.
Them entering the Everfree Forest reminds me more of Lif and Lífthrasir being sheltered by Hoddmímis holt in the norse legend of Ragnarok than Adam and Eve. Zecora a lone zebra survives in the Everfree so in my head cannon they would be the start of a new humanity in the forest. But as generations pass and only having tribal level of tools stone and branch spears mostly and passed down is a mistrust of ponies they clearly mark their territory and would kill any dare wander in. They would not hunt for ponies outside of their borders. As far as ponies go they would just want to be left alone.
This is preferable, I would say, to another twenty or thirty years of misery and isolation inside the Masada. It was not beyond the pale to have Stefan finally break down completely, so despondent and lonely perhaps after a month or so with just his wife that all their armor is gone and they reach out to the sisters to finally give them hooves. Perhaps he knew that, and did this before it could happen.
I suspect, if Luna knew how to ponify, she would have simply shouldered the burden of being the bad guy and forcibly ponified them, right there by the carriage, while they were saying their goodbyes. Better to ask forgiveness than permission and all that. She would have been content to be the object of Celestia's disapproval afterwards—though I'm sure even that would have been brief and only for the sake of keeping up appearances.
I also suspect Stefan in particular would have found it more satisfying to have Celestia herself kill him, maybe put her horn through his heart or something. It would have been a more poetic way to go, finally having the being who's been slowly wearing down at your mind and your holdings ever since first appearing on Earth finish the job herself, conquering in the human tradition. I suppose she wouldn't have done it, which would have been the final insult to Stefan, but he'd have asked, and for his part the dignity of having your nemesis kill you personally would have been fulfilled.
3055483
I sympathize with him about as much as I did Dream of the Endless. Death can be a refreshing start, but sometimes it's incredibly senseless.
My feelings reflect Luna's in this chapter, really.
3055751
She does know how to turn humans into ponies, she's done it two or three times so far in this story.
3055980
Neil Gaiman summarized Sandman thusly: "The King of Dreams learns that one must change or die, and makes his choice." Replace "Dreams" with "Men," and you have the story of Stefan Bettencourt.
I'm quite pleasantly reminded of a Shakespearean insult page-a-day calendar I used to have. I do love bygone put-downs, and this was just fantastic.
Um, you may want to make that "the last man in Equestria." Otherwise, the sentence implies that women aren't human.
Alright, enough specifics, what did I think overall? This was probably the best possible way to send off humanity in your Equestria. Equinoid salvation for all who would take it, and a dignified farewell for those who wouldn't. The Bettencourts went out like humans, daring to explore frontiers where they were never meant to go, simply to see what's there. They may not have your sympathy, but they have your respect. At least, I think they do. Don't want to put words in your mouth or anything.
Oh, and one last thing:
In a cave! With a box of SCRAPS!
)
(Sorry, but when you're a fan of most everything, there are some things that must be done.
3056135
Mhm. That would be why I made the comparison.
3055751
Poetic perhaps, but still putting his final fate in her hooves. I read Stefan's action as a little bit braver than that - he was NOT surrendering, in the end. He knew what was going to happen, of course, but he made it a point to be defiant. Not out of spite, but hope. Do not go gentle into that good night. There's even some nobility in the way they conducted themselves at the end there; they'd obviously come to peace with their decision, and they were nothing but polite and even friendly to the Sisters. When Luna offered a final gift, they accepted it not with greed or distrust, but graciousness. The life and the world they knew were gone forever, and they understood that. But it was their life and their world, and they weren't going down without a fight. The Bettancourts might have been monsters, but they were - at least in that moment - just a little bit heroic too. Humans are paradoxical that way.
3055980
I get where you're coming from. Maybe you're right, and she should've just ponified them on the spot. Everyone involved probably would've been a lot happier. There is certainly an argument to be made that going to your nigh-inevitable death is a clear sign you're not mentally competent to be making decisions about your own welfare. But, everyone involved acted as their conscience demanded.
3056019
I was speaking in the hypothetical. If Luna knew how to ponify, and has butted heads with her sister in the past (very recently at that, even in this story setting), I could see her considering going against Celestia in this.
Of all ponies, she would perhaps be the one who most understands what Stefan is going through and the motivations behind his decision. She could relate, however tenuously, to the frustration of feeling as though you are losing control, fading into obscurity, that nobody can see your side of it, that the world is against you. She would also be familiar with the self-destructive nature of that thinking, and, if she has the power, she would be tempted to use it to spare someone else from the path she almost went down.
Celestia and Luna are foils for each other in this story, and it's been established that Luna relates much better to the humans than Celestia, as well as harboring less rigid adherence to laws and sanctions. I believe, in the past of the Chatoverse, she has been sympathetic to if not materially supportive of the PER, begged for mercy and reason on Lillian's (of Code Majeste) behalf, and otherwise acted as a sort of sanity-check for both sides when it was needed. Here, seeing the last two humans anywhere walk to their deaths, knowing she could do something about it, I think she would act, or at least feel the powerful impulse to.
3056183
It's not that. I support the right to choose, in most cases.
But they have a daughter. I believe once you have a child, that's it. Their life, their needs, supersede your own. Having a child, and keeping it to term, is a covenant in its own way to me. It's a promise to your child that you will be there for them, that you will guide them through the world, until such a time as they no longer need you, or you're no longer able.
In most cases, I would have been happy accepting that neither of them are fit for parenthood. I would have been quite content to let them dive onto their funeral pyre. They betrayed their offspring, and if they don't have the furies on their trail, they should.
But there was another way. They could have been what their daughter needed, they could have... Forget it.
A thought dances in and out of my mind's eye, but I can't seize it long enough to communicate it.
EDIT: I remembered the thought.
If he wants to get all biblical, fine. If he wants to show off what a bad ass human he is, then he's missing the point.
Because dying for someone or something is easy, living is quite a bit more difficult.
3056186
Luna does support the PER. She did all of those things you bring up. I'm not sure where the hypothetical comes in, because the inner turmoil is something that happened. She did consider turning them both into ponies without her sister's consent, she did ask her sister what would happen to her. Celestia replied that she would do nothing.
In the end she valued her sister's wishes more than her own, and did not turn them into ponies.
I know that something like parallel structure isn't something to be strictly enforced, but for a piece of written work like this, I really think that Stefan's noun be "man" if Liliane's is going to be "woman".
Now: obligatory video links.
On the chapter title:
[youtube=9xgvEusIvDg]
And on Luna's argument with Celestia and Celestia making a comparison of herself to Discord:
[youtube=7kscfb9XzPs]
And alas, Bettencourt, you're so close, but you forget:
Ladies and gentleman, hats off and a moment of silence for those who remain. God bless those damned fools. They've mayhap consigned themselves to oblivion. Yet in this new chapter their first act was to not drag with them a single unwilling victim. They'll live or die upon acceptance of dear John Donne's words above from here on out. It's in their own hands, just as it had always been.
And to those of you who are cheering, this darned thing's title card is still reading incomplete!
Wow... words... kinda fail me. On the one hoof, Stefan has cojones for doing what he's doing. On the other? yeah, he's a Luna-damned idiot. A rational, completely sane idiot going to his death. And he knows it. Somehow, that's more terrifying.
I'm getting the feeling that if Stefan wasn't there to accede to, Liliane would be all for ponification.
3056135>>3056233
Last human, versus last man - FIXED! Just sloppy writing on my part there. I would never willingly consign women to a status of less than human - I ARE one!
Derp.
This chapter was suggested to me by one of my spouses who argued that Stefan Bettencourt would never, ever allow himself to be ponified. If any human would resist to the end, it would be him, because everything he felt himself to be was his job, his position. He could never accept being just another pony. He was a ruler, and was incapable of settling for anything less than total domination. A future-world Alexander.
The tragedy is that if Luna had forcibly ponified him, and his wife, they would have become happy in the end. It would have taken time, but in the end, he would have been glad.
But Luna, for all her compassion, has to live with her sister for all eternity. Every life is a passing moment to the both of them. Keeping her sister happy with her mattered more, quite understandably.
That said, I have painted Luna as subversive and the secret champion of humanity over many novels and there is a hint - just a hint - that she may have secretly overstepped her bounds more than her sister realizes. It's in there. It's subtle. But it's there, in the wording of her moment of gifting the Bettencourts.
Sneaky, subversive Luna. Celestia's conscience.
Sisters.
3057371
Shame about that owlbear, though.
3057371
But... I love Alexander. He is SUCH a pegasus!
What's that? You have an impossible knot? I'll just hack it in two!
Pegasus logic.
Yup, Alexander needs to be a pegasusususus
3057371
[youtube=XJzLLO7wmmg]
As for Stefan, if you really think he ended up dying, don't pity the dead, they found a way out on their terms.
As for myself on Stefan, I wonder what tales Apple Bloom will tell her foals of the beings that walk the Everfree. Mayhap the Coeurl (Mythological spelling aren't hard) shall be replaced.
3058255
Apple Bloom's foals wanted a scary story, or they just plum wouldn't tucker out and go to sleep. This was something she had dealt with before, and she always came prepared.
"Now y'all just set yourselves back there, and give a listen, fer this here story is true and comes straight outta th' Everfree, an' that's about as scary as you can get." Apple Bloom watched her foals eyes grow big.
"Th' Evafee?" Little Sweet Apple shivered with fear and delight.
"Eeeyup, shor enough. The Everfree." Apple Bloom made sure that Apple Butter was tucked in before continuing. "Now they says that deep in the Everfree, way on past 'ol Zecora's hut, prob'ly clear on out to the other side of the whole dang thing, there walks the horrify'n SKIN APE!"
"Skin ate?" Apple Butter looked doubtful. "Wha's a skin ate? How can skins ate anything?"
Apple Bloom looked frustrated. "Naw, I ain't said skin ate, I said skin APE. Pay attention there, Apple Butter!" She looked at her two foals and waited until they had calmed down a might. "Now the skin APE is a scary and weird-like critter. Ain't got no fur, 'ceptin' on the top of it's poll. And it has claws like a dragon, only they ain't sharp'r nothin'. And it's got a small mouth with little tiny teeth, and it's dern nose don't work so good neither."
"Tha' isn't scary!" Sweet Apple shook her head.
"You said this'd be a scary story! Now you done got me pity'n the poor thing!" Apple Butter stuck her lip out.
"Oh, don't you be deceived there, child, 'cause the skin ape, it ain't so much when it comes to natural defenses, but it's a clever little thing. What it lacks in claw and horn, it makes up in sheer determination to do bad." Apple Bloom crossed her forelegs and snorted. "Why that there skin ape'd croak and eat ya all up afor it were even dawn, you go walking in where ya don't belong!"
"How it do that, mama?" Sweet apple was sucking her hoof, that meant it was starting to get to her.
"Well, that 'ol skin ape is cunning, like I done said, and he'll go and get some sticks and get some vines, and maybe some o' them sharp-type rocks and all sorts'a things, and wrap and cut and build and make and WHAM!" The two foals eyes got wide again. "Maybe you fall down a pit, and there's sharp poky sticks down there and you fall on them and that's all you know. Or maybe you're just walking along, lookin' at the butterflies, and BAM! big ol' log with spikes and stuff come swinging down on vines and smashes you all to bits!"
"Why that mean ol' skin ape do this, mama?" Apple Butter was shivering now.
"Just 'cus. No other reason. Maybe he done bother to eat you, maybe he just does it fer fun. That's the way with skin apes, they just plum like ta' kill stuff. Fer fun. It's called 'huntin' and they used ta go and do that all th' time, back when they still had critters. But they done went an' run outta critters."
"Is this from that time you done went to the Other World an' all?" Apple Butter felt smart, remembering.
"Yup. Now here's the scary bit - they say two o' them skin apes is still loose out there, somewhere in the dark corners ah the Everfree!"
"EWWWWW!" Sweet Apple and Apple Butter said together.
"So don't you let me catch you sneak'n off to go into the forest, like yur great-granny done did, back when she were a filly."
Both foals promised they would be good.
'That's the way to set'em right!' thought Apple Bloom. Sure enough, both fillies had their fill of scary stuff, so that meant story time was over.
"Goodnight, ya little varmints." Apple Bloom shook her head. How foals could sleep after scary stories was something she would never understand.
'Goo nite, mama!" And with that, Sweet Apple turned over and cuddled into her sister, and both fell fast asleep.
Were this a different story, I would say that the one tool a human needs is the human mind. Tools can be made. Food and drink can be found. Shelter can be found, then later made.
But these two humans are ill-equipped to use their own wits for survival. They have lived their whole lives being catered to, having used their wits to the end of stockpiling meaningless numbers.
And that is why. The Bettencourts do not see the Everfree for the monumental survival challenge that it is. They think that the human mind can just sweep in and take without any effort.
They forget that we are squishy and taste good with ketchup.
3057371
Lemme guess. The Bettencourts mentioned they'd had their sperm and ova stored--stored in a world that no longer exists. They're probably quite incapable of reproducing even without the magical suppression thereof.
Until Luna gave them their youth back.
Bwa. Ha. Ha.
3060765
No... Luna would not give them reproduction back. That could condemn any children to possible abandonment when their parents got eaten. Also, the risk of humans breeding is too great, and goes against her sister's judgements too blatantly. But a good guess.
3057371
So Luna did something else eh? Hmmm....
Aha! When Luna de-aged them, she also gave them souls, didn't she?
3062101
Could... be. Could... be.
That Luna, she's a sneaky one.
3064754
Heh, since that wasn't a no like the other guess, I'm assuming I'm right and you're just avoiding spoilers.
Luna is a sneaky one indeed, to pull a fast one on Celestia. Or perhaps Celestia knows and is just feigning ignorance for her sister's sake....
Though this does beg the question of what will happen to those souls when their vessels inevitably die.... Perhaps they become pony souls and move on to the eternal herd. That way, Luna didn't technically ponify the Bettencourts. Just their souls.
It was hard to read this chapter with the tears in my eyes. I felt so much sympathy for Luna. Her heart is so big she wants to hide it from everyone and everything to keep from getting hurt, but once she lets something inside there is no more lying to herself about how much she really does care.
All I can say is... Wow. This story is a true masterpiece, with various philosophical arguments on a variety of subjects. While I may not agree with all of the points of view, I appreciate them and the way they were presented.
The only thing I feel was a bit off was the part where Peony is being reunited with her mother. The whole feminization thing was done in an overused and creepy way, where they used her name multiple times per sentence to underscore her new self; this wasn't done to the same extent with the other children, so it feels out of place here. Making a big deal out of the situation is doing exactly what you don't want to do, your point of view being that it should be treated as normal and natural, not strange and different.
Just my two bits, keep up the good work! You've earned a follower!
3219614
Thank you kindly, websterhamster!
3253852
Yeah... I have fun with names. A lot.
WHAT IS A MAN? A MISERABLE LITTLE PILE OF SECRETS! BUT ENOUGH TALK! HAVE AT YOU!!
Sorry, the chapter title demanded that SOMEPONY say that and after reading the comments it looks like that pony is me
Sneaky sneaky Luna.
And now I get to wait with everypony else for this to start updating again XD woo-hoo! I'm all caught up :D your stories are so wonderful, I am very happy to have read them all^^ (all so far, anyway! I do hope there will be more to read!)
3256245
Thank you very, very much Toksyuryel. I am working my way back to finishing this novel, as best I can. Maybe my upcoming trip to my very first fur convention will snap me out of my depression, so I can write again. Well, more than short stories, anyway.
3258619
Everyone I want to hug is going to be at RF and I'm not going to be there D: hope you have fun, in any case!
3253720
I'm not sure I understand why you think that humans would have set an age of majority over eighteen? I don't mean to sound accusatory, I'm more concerned that I've misremembered some piece of canon from earlier works but most of the western world puts legal adulthood at around that age so it seems logical that the mostly western Elites would place it as their legal age of adulthood as well?
3288947
See the comment I left on chapter 3 for your answer.
Still waiting for you to finish this!
3825647
I apologize. I am having a very rough time right now, and it is very difficult to write anything. I do intend to finish this work, though arguably it works as it is. I am sorry to make you wait. I'm just having a lot of trouble right now, and it is difficult to do more than the occasional short story within my Poly Little Puppy collection. But I will get back to this.
3825750 I am sorry to hear that. I have always been of fan of your fics,ever since reading "A taste of Grass". I like how well you portray the pony utopia of love and friendship. I don't understand why you get all these down votes though? Is it because you portray humans as despicable bastards?
I hope you feel better soon.
3825912
But I don't absolutely don't depict humans as bastards. At all. I get crap about this issue, so I am very raw about it.
Alexi at clinic 042, always trying to help, even at the cost of his own safety. Venice Bertarelli, mean rich girl originally, she desires to become good and kind. Dr. Roselyn Pastern, always trying her hardest for her patients no matter what the situation or prejudice against them. Lynn, her PA, forever helping others. Finley and his mother Susan, and the entire human favela community they were a part of, all working and helping each other.
Seraphina Hollande, Petra Bettencourt, Asher Brin, Milo Cameron, Oliver Sachs, and Isla Draghi, all kind, loving, decent children struggling together despite terrible circumstances. Sloane Cameron and Ophelia Sachs who don't want to convert but do for the sake of their children, out of love and loyalty. Dorcas and Miriam who work so hard in the kitchens to feed everyone. Beth the kindly receptionist.
Ernesto, Bertrand, and the entire crew of the Auxesia, who all wish only to do the right thing, take care of their loved ones and help others - even Cartwright, despite her rudeness. The Ngô family, who made food for every human in the Noe valley favela. Manny Delgado so devoted to his grandmother in Los Angeles.
What about Jorge Jeitson who faced the end of the world in a lawn chair on Redondo Beach because that is the way a man faces the end, beer in hand? What of LAPD Chief of Police Ronald Chua, the last police officer in the entire world, who cared more for his community than for his own life? Jenkins and his commander, brave Blackmesh protecting citizens and dispensing free food to the favelas?
I'm only scraping the surface of my noble, compassionate, heroic human characters here.
It makes me upset when anyone suggests I don't treat human characters well.
3827225
Ill news may be an ill gift, but it needs to come all the same.
I do not know whether or not Zero came here to abuse you. I really don't. I mean, my impulse is to doubt it, seeing as most of his comment was supportive, he told you he missed your stories, and ended the comment wishing you well. Granted, that bit in the middle was shaky, but I hardly see how that confirms the negative nature of this comment.
I do know, however, that had I tried to compliment someone, and they responded by grabbing one thing I said and attempting to transform me into a strawman, questioning my intelligence and assuming that I was some manner of hand wringing monster, I would definitely back off, and any abuse that person suffered would be pretty low on my list of priorities to care about.
That was just a rude comment. The thing about rude comments? They chase away decent people and do nothing to trolls.
3850938
I have reconsidered what you have to say.
I have been utterly shellshocked by what I have been through. I am not what I was before the bastards harassed me, before those I thought my friends betrayed me, before the mods here failed to protect me. I am deeply hurt. I think this has made me very fragile and hair-trigger.
I apologize to you, and I intend to apologize to Zero, if I can.
Your point is well taken: if I was being trolled, then my reaction is pointless and only feeds the trolls, and if it was just joking, then I have reacted incorrectly.
I wish I knew how to heal up from all of this. I feel wrecked.
3853018
You can heal from it by avoiding what caused it, and you can avoid what caused it by learning how to modulate your reactions more effectively.
And I accept your apology.