Romance and the Fate of Equestria

So, Sørmur dï Mitgaeard. Obviously, loosely named after and very loosely based on the Mitgardsormr of Norse mythology. Everyone knows that Midgard, literally "Middle-earth", is what the Norse called the mortal realm, the world in which we live. The Mitgardsormr is also called the World Serpent in English or, for the fancy-minded, the Mitgard Serpent. Only recently, I discovered the Old Norse world "ormr". Meaning "serpent". Wow. I had logically assumed that it was "Mitgard sormr", but with this new information, I can now only conclude that it's actually "Mitgards ormr". Oops. Not a big deal as far as the character's name goes, it was always intended to be a corruption of the original name, a bastardization if you will. My embarrassment stems from the fact that the TVtropes page has said "Mitgard Sormr" all these months. I broke my no-more-editing vow to fix that. The lesson being, scrunching two words together into one word is confusing for future generations. Dadgum Norsemen.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Six

The sinuous, shadowy form of Sørmur dï Mitgaeard slipped through the trees. These trees were gnarled and dark, overgrown with moss and untended… for they were the trees of the Everfree Forest.

Three ponies flew alongside her, matching her leisurely speed by flitting from tree to tree. The six crown jewels, outlined in midnight-blue magic, orbited Vorpal Blade's body.

"I admit I'm concerned," he said casually, sidling up to one of Mitgaeard's massive blue eyes, which was nearly as large as his body. "We are technically within the borders of Equestria. The Everfree Forest has become a lot more accessible in the past few years."

"There are ssssstill depthsss to which none will go," she said coldly in response.

"You know, four countries are uniting," Vorpal Blade taunted. "As I recall, you never seem to come out ahead when faced with an army. The four mightiest nations in the history of this world, all coming together at once? I'm getting a very entertaining mental picture of those four armies pinning you down while the five goddesses who lead them walk in, and see you all trussed up, and then… well, then they find out whether you're killable or not! Now wouldn't that be the scientific discovery of the eon. So is this gonna take long? 'Cause, ah, if we knock around in Equestrian territory too long, we might end up finding out just how much blood you've got, milady."

"My courssse is my own," Mitgaeard retorted. "You do not advise. You only follow my goalsss."

He only smirked in response.

"We will not be long," Mitgaeard said. "I have sssensed a presenssssse…"

"Something divine?" he said with interest.

"No. Mortal flesh. But mortal flesh of a primordial bloodline, as mighty as the sssea and sssky." She huffed, shaking her head rapidly to break through a curtain of hanging moss. "How I dessspise thisss wild growth! My prize had bessst be worthwhile…"

She peered through the trees and found herself at the bottom of a huge waterfall, amazingly tall but with a surface as smooth as glass, shining a beautiful blue in the sunlight. In the river was a huge, shimmering purple sea serpent with vibrant orange hair. He was grooming himself, focusing on his reflection in the topmost point of the waterfall, some fifty feet up.

"La-da-dee, la-da-doo, la-da-dum…" the serpent sang, running his claws through his dangling, curly mustache, half of which matched his hair while the other half was a deep shade of indigo.

Mitgaeard's eyes lit up fiercely. "Yessss!" she crowed, flying over to him, her head hovering alongside his. "A mighty river ssssserpent! Ssso few of your kind remain…"

The serpent nodded, but remained focused on his reflection. "Yes, too true," he said in a musical, effeminate voice. "It's because we eat our own kind. So tacky."

Mitgaeard chuckled. "You're familiar with the practissse? Yet here you are, alive… and huge…"

"Mmm, not without struggle," the serpent preened. "It's hard, being a hatchling, unable to trust anyone. Wouldn't you know it, my childhood was dreadful…"

"And how did you sssssssurvive?" Mitgaeard whispered eagerly, leaning closer.

"I spent a lot of time hiding under rocks."

Mitgaeard frowned. "But… how did you ever reach sssuch a monssstrousss sssize?"

"Well, I kept being alive, so after a while, my body got bigger," the serpent said dryly, shooting a condescending glare at his reflection. "At first that just meant I had to hide under bigger rocks, but eventually, by staying away from all the fighting, I became the biggest. No one could touch me." He gazed upward in contemplation. "But I'm no cannibal, ma'am. Sorry to disappoint. The first time I saw a river serpent devour another, I said, 'Eww! Not me. I'm going to be civilized.'"

"Fassscinating," Mitgaeard said bitterly. "The moral of the ssstory is that cowards live longer." With even more contempt, she added, "Your mussstache is not sssssymmetrical."

"Oh, yes!" he said gleefully. "I know it's a bit avant-garde, but… I once lost one half of my delightful mustache." He sniffled emotionally. "But a perfect stranger fixed it for me. And ever since it grew back, I've been dying it purple as a memento of that wonderful gift."

Mitgaeard coiled, shrinking away from the river serpent as if about to strike. "Thisss is going poorly," she muttered to herself. "Ssstill, you are every bit the masssssive ssserpent I was promisssed… What is your name, ssserpent?"

"Steven, ma'am," he said brightly, still not looking at her.

She blinked. "Sssssssteven," she said in disbelief.

"With one S, not thirteen, but yes," he chuckled.

"That is not a ssserpent name," Mitgaeard said suspiciously.

"Well, I think it's important to appreciate other cultures!" he chirped.

"Hmph, well… have you ever thought about doing more with your life? More to further the ssserpent cause?"

"We have a cause?" Steven mused. "My only agenda is to class this place up a bit! If I've added just a bit of sparkle to the Everfree Forest's aesthetic, I'm happy with my life."

Mitgaeard snorted disdainfully, then had a moment of realization and grinned broadly. "Aessstheticssssss?" she whispered. "I have a fondnesssss for sssuch a thing as well. I alwaysss wanted to improve the ssstate of the Everfree…"

Steven stroked his chin. He hadn't taken his eyes off of his reflection even once. "Hmm, then perhaps we could join forces. Are you a seasoned fashionista like my old friend?"

"Not ssssso much," Mitgaeard said in amusement.

"What are you, then?"

Vorpal Blade, standing at the riverbank, glanced at Skippmud and Crazyface in disbelief, then flew up to Steven's eye level, crown jewels and all. "Um, Steven? Sir? Have you thought about maybe looking at who you're talking to?"

He gawked at Vorpal Blade in surprise, as if that had genuinely never occurred to him. He turned toward Mitgaeard, who bared her curved fangs and puffy gums in an attempt at a winning smile. Steven turned back to Vorpal Blade, looking pale and shaky. "Is that the Allmother?" he squeaked.

"Pretty much, yeah," Vorpal Blade said dryly.

Steven's lip quivered, and he burst into tears. "I don't want to be a chosen one!" he bawled. "They're forced to fight for a cause they don't believe in and then they all die horribly!"

Vorpal Blade chuckled. "Oh, don't worry, there won't be any of that. I'm the chosen one around here."

"Mm, my condolences," Steven said grimly, taking in his appearance. "That is far too many fake wings. One wing says 'aspiring evil god', seven just says 'fashion victim villain'."

"Uh, noted. But the Allmother over here, it may interest you to know, is doing things differently nowadays. The Matrix was a flawed business plan, but there's another type of order: law and order. She's going to rule over Equestria as a beneficent, orderly sort of goddess. But we need more power to make this plan a reality."

"And what a power we've found," Skippmud said seductively, flying up Steven's body, dragging one hoof across his scales. "Miles and miles of rippling serpent muscle. Mm-mm-mm. And your…" She had reached his long, skinny arms. Mildly repulsed, she skipped over them and began caressing his hand. "These razor-sharp claws…"

"What are you trying to do, appeal to my masculine pride?" Steven sneered. "Were you not paying attention to the past five minutes?"

"At least I knew who was talking," Skippmud grumbled.

Vorpal Blade gently patted the tip of Steven's snout. "The noblest and most ancient of your people is offering you the chance of a lifetime here, buddy," he said softly. "The world is in your coils if you accept. And that's a lot of coils. Why, with your thickness, you must be six hundred feet long."

"Try two hundred," Steven snipped. "Who's your baseline, her?" He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder, pointing at Mitgaeard. "She's just freakishly skinny. And 'noblest and most ancient of my people'? Let me explain something to you: serpents don't respect the Allmother. At all. Oh, we know of her divine influence, and it's a major part of what passes for serpent culture. Somehow we know all about her from the day we're born, it's part and parcel with all our other natural instincts. But do we like her? No, that's a common misconception. None of us appreciate what she represents. Serpents are creatures who desire freedom and long lives, and any associating with this one is not conducive to that. I'm afraid I'm going to have to say no."

He crossed his arms, staring determinedly away from Mitgaeard. Her face showed no emotion in response; instead, she simply flew back into his line of vision until he couldn't turn his head any further.

"Look at me, Sssteven," she said calmly. He did, the edges of his eyes shaking with fear. "Sssuch bravery in the fassse of sssssertain doom," Mitgaeard cooed. "You fear me, mortal, as all the ssserpents do, and yet you turn me down…"

"And there's nothing you can say that will change my mind," he said in a quavering voice.

"Then I will sssay nothing of the sssssort," Mitgaeard said with a smirk. "Though I do have a quessstion for you: do you fear death?"

He hesitated, his thoughts clearly racing, before suddenly reaching out, grabbing Mitgaeard by the head, and shoving her face into the river, holding her down in an attempt to drown her.

Without even a hint of panic, Mitgaeard carefully began looping her body around Steven's, and with a mighty heave she pulled him down with her. The two enormous serpents thrashed and twisted together in the water, causing the river to churn and foam.

Vorpal Blade and Skippmud flapped down to the ground, landing next to Crazyface. "Do you think he can win?" Crazyface asked. "He's right, she is a skinny little thing."

"I hardly think so," Vorpal Blade said thoughtfully. "He's still mortal." After a few more seconds of pondering, a wild laugh escaped his lips. "He's mortal and he's fighting Sørmur dï Mitgaeard! Nothing short of the Old Gods can save him now."

Skippmud watched the entangled beasts with interest. "Is it wrong that this is turning me on a little bit?"

"Serpents fighting?" Vorpal Blade said blankly. "Well, I see where you're coming from, but it's a little bit wrong, yeah."

She laughed. "Just the way I like it."

Skippmud lovingly leaned on Vorpal Blade, who responded by wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Crazyface scowled at them indignantly.

Mitgaeard rose from the water, her body wrapped like a noose around the back of Steven's head, her fangs at his throat. "Right here, right now, anssswer," she growled through her wide-open mouth. "Do. You. Fear. Death?"

Tears streaked down Steven's face. "Y-yes. I do. I do. Please d-don't kill me."

She relaxed her grip slightly, and patted him on the head mockingly with the tip of her tail. "I wasn't going to kill you, Sssteven. I wasss going to rehabilitate you. I would have cured you of your fear of death."

"Really?" he said blankly.

"Yesssss," she said, her eyes burning with fury. "I would have eliminated that fear ssso fully that you would be begging me to allow you to die."

He whimpered.

"If you do not join my group," Mitgaeard continued, "there will come a time where you will beg for death to ssspare you the tormentsssss. I will have you, mighty ssserpent, and if I cannot, hell itssself will be a welcome reprieve from my disssssappointment."

"I… I will join you," he said slowly. "I work for you."

She tilted her head toward him curiously, as if trying to hear him better. "What did you sssay?"

"I work for you… Allmother," he sighed, defeated.

"Mmmmm, delightful," Mitgaeard said hungrily, heaving her coils to toss him hard onto the riverbank.

Rising to the top of the waterfall, Mitgaeard dipped her fangs into the river, and venom began pumping out. The waterfall went dark, and soon so did the rest of the river. Fish and other creatures began floating to the surface, dead; some of the water plants decayed instantly, while surrounding trees slowly blackened and shriveled up. In the distance, this could be seen happening all along the river's course.

"No!" Steven cried out. He flinched in pain, realizing that the venom was starting to burn him, and he hauled his entire massive length out of the river. "What have you done? That river's been my home for three hundred and fifty years!"

"Well then, knowing that you can't return home should make the transssition easier for you," Mitgaeard said sweetly.

Steven held his face in his claws and sobbed.

"Vorpal Blade, you know where to take him," said Mitgaeard.

"I do, milady."

"Now that we've got him, you can ssstop carrying around those ridiculousssss crown jewelsss everywhere you go," Mitgaeard commanded. "Leave them in the hoard."

Vorpal Blade bristled. "You know I can't do that. These crown jewels are—"

She shot a fang out of her mouth straight for him. It struck him in the chest, sending him hurling through the air, pinning him against a tree, for it had gone straight through his stomach and out his back, completely piercing the Golden Thread that fortified him. The fang was still attached to the inside of Mitgaeard's mouth by a thin, red tendon-like cord.

"DO NOT SSSSSAY NO TO ME!" she bellowed. "YOUR REASSSONS MEAN NOTHING! MY REASSSONS MEAN NOTHING! YOU MUSSST LEARN TO DO AS I SSSSSAY!"

She approached him, her huge snout pressing up against his. "It'sss the prinsssssiple of the thing. If you engage me in one more battle of willsss, it will be the lassst thing you ever do, you technology-addled wretch of a pony!"

She sucked the tooth back into her mouth; as she did so, some sort of sparkling red energy travelled down the cord, shooting out of the fang and painfully cauterizing Vorpal Blade's wound on both sides, leaving him staggered, tumbling down to the ground, his spine crooked.

"I do not need you as much as you ssssseem to think," she said coldly. "I have another sssssivilized ssservant now." She flashed her fangs at Steven, and without another word, slipped into the river and disappeared.

Vorpal Blade shakily got to his hooves. With a small flash of light from his horn, he readjusted his spine and fully healed the wound from his impalement, then gathered the crown jewels, which had unceremoniously dropped to the ground. "Come on, Steven," he said kindly, flying up to the serpent and gently touching the side of his head. "This won't be so bad, honest. It'll be a rough ride at first, but you're gonna end up in a pretty swanky position."

Steven stared back at him with bleary, tearful eyes. "You seem so sincere and happy. How can you work for Sørmur dï Mitgaeard and be so much at peace with yourself?"

"Oh, hey," Vorpal Blade said wryly. "You got a chance to choose between working for her, or being tortured until you beg for death. That's more options than I got. If life doesn't give you a choice about where you're going, if your free will suddenly means nothing, well then… you gotta take what you get and appreciate it. You know?"

All seven of his horns lit up, creating an expanding orb of energy, big enough to envelop not only the other two ponies but Steven as well, and they all vanished in an explosion of light and smoke.

A second later, it was night, and Vorpal Blade, Skippmud, and Crazyface were hovering over a turbulent black ocean. Steven rose up out of the water, struggling to maintain his balance among the churning waves. To the north was an immense cliff face which extended to the horizon in either direction, and directly ahead of them, a narrow cave nearly as tall as the entire cliff split the whole coast in two like a gruesome axe wound.

"What is this place?" Steven demanded, having to shriek over the sounds of the wind, waves, and rain.

"A notoriously temperamental patch of ocean just off the southern coast of Nara," Vorpal Blade said cheerfully. "…If you call that a coast," he added dryly, eyeing the cliffs.

The three ponies flew into the cave, and Steven swam after them, for it seemed to extend far beneath the ocean as well as above it. All three of them lit the way with their horns; Vorpal Blade's midnight-blue light dominating, while Skippmud's artificial horn produced light of a sickly green, and Crazyface's bright red.

"That was an empty threat of, of course," Vorpal Blade said casually after several minutes of silence. "What she said to me, back there. There's no Mitgaeard nation without Prince Vorpal Blade." He laughed. Skippmud pouted at him, concerned at his plainly false bravado.

"Those are lovely jewels," Steven said, peering at the six crown jewels.

"Thanks. Crown jewels of Equestria," Vorpal Blade boasted. "Pulled a lot of heists in my life, but this one was the best."

"They're magical, aren't they?" Steven said with wonder. "I can sense something about them."

"I know you can," Vorpal Blade replied bitterly. "That's why we've got to carry them around with us. The inherently-magical presence of pony souls masks their magic, so that ancient creatures like you can't sense them from a distance. But if she wants me to leave them in the hoard, sure, I can do that, it'll only make them detectable for miles around. If there's a break-in and the Allmother blames me for the loss of some of the treasure, there's… well, there's not much I can do about it."

He sighed and hung his head. Heartbroken, Skippmud wrapped her arms around him comfortingly.

"What's that whistling noise?" Steven asked.

"Oh, that's me," said Crazyface. He stopped flapping for a moment to glide, displaying the clean hole straight through his wing. "Some goddess winged me with a laser blast."

Steven blinked. "Does that happen often?"

"Increasingly so," Crazyface said with wicked glee. "I've never known carnage like this. It's exhilarating!"

"So… what am I doing here, exactly?" Steven said nervously.

"Just a little bit of outreach we're doing," Skippmud said enthusiastically. "The three of us are a golden team, but it's time to start recruiting more. Mitgaeard, for all her power, has always been known for being vulnerable against armies, but if she had an army of her own, that might even things out a bit."

"I see," Steven said with dawning horror.

"And we figured we'd start by getting a bit of serpent blood on the team!" Skippmud finished.

"Not any actual serpents, just their blood," Crazyface added.

"Yeah, once we get to the end of this cave we'll be taking all of your blood," Skippmud agreed.

They all laughed at his horrified expression. A moment later, Crazyface hastily stopped laughing, silently cursed himself, and went back to angrily avoiding his companions' eyes.

"We're just messing with you, Steven," Vorpal Blade said jovially. "Here's where we're taking you…"

The cave opened into a massive cavern, large enough to hold a city, and Steven's first impression was that it did contain just that—but as it turned out, what he had thought were towering buildings were mountains and hills made of gold coins of all sizes, jewels of all colors. The mounds were lined with huge statues, works of art, and strange-looking relics, some of them plainly magical.

"What is this place?" he breathed as he slithered out of the water and across the layer of coins; not an inch of floor was visible beneath them.

"This is my treasure hoard," Vorpal Blade said proudly. "I've been working on it for five and a half centuries. With such a treasure, one could practically purchase the planet. This is my life's work. This is why I'm the chosen one, this is why Mitgaeard sought me out, this… is what truly makes me special."

He artfully arranged the crown jewels in a valley of sorts. "Steven, your job is to guard this place. If any creature gets in here through any means, not only will I be alerted, but you…" He paused and craned his neck up to look at Steven towering high above him. "Wow. You know, I actually think you could take on just about anything that could get in here. Suddenly, leaving the crown jewels here doesn't sound like such a bad idea. It's still not a great idea, but you are easily going to be a valuable addition to this team, good sir. Congratulations on being the newest member of the Mitgaeard nation."

Vorpal Blade bowed down respectfully. Steven soaked in the sight of the glittering treasure hoard, but on pondering the full picture, all he could do was whimper and sob.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

Endnotes

As you may have noticed, I'm trimming down Mitgaeard's snake-speech. I no longer think that every time she says the letter S should have it stretch forever. I think I'll go with three S's for the normal way she pronounces words, five for particularly sibilant words, seven if she's being extra-hammy. Probably never more than that. And if it interrupts the flow of what she's saying, I'll just omit the multiple S's entirely. Also, if the sibilant sound is actually made by the letter C, I'll just switch it to S's, because multiple C's just… doesn't look right. So, I'm gonna go back and edit every chapter in which Mitgaeard speaks, including in Legend, so it conforms to those rules. I don't change the past very often (I never did put DJ P0n-3's phonetic Cockney accent into Part One), so the fact that I'd do that just shows you how ridiculous I've realized it is. It's just kinda hard to look at.

So, yes, all you readers from the future, maybe you find the snake-speech annoying, well, you have no idea. Be grateful, because it ussssssed to be sssssssssssso much worssssssse. When Steven makes that crack about spelling his name with thirteen S's, that was originally going to be kind of a "leaning on the fourth wall" moment, because it actually would have been spelled with exactly thirteen S's. Which wouldn't have been remotely unusual for the way I used to write Mitgaeard's dialogue. Yeesh, what was I thinking?