New short arc for Letters From a Little Princess Monster starting tomorrow · 10:45pm Aug 23rd, 2018
Only three chapters, but it sets up the three sub-stories that Discord... well, you'll just have to see, won't you. Publishing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, where I reveal the migration patterns of the alicornus divinus, Trixie's new card trick, and Sunburst's new job.
...Much, much earlier that same morning, in the Canterlot railroad station.
It had taken Sunburst Flare many weeks of scrimping and saving to get the bits for his trip to Yakyakistan for his next field of study. Yak magic was a strange melange of earth pony and other sorts of enchantments, wrapped up into their history like a long, braided rope of yak hair. Which incidentally was the same way they kept their history books. And cooking recipes. And family trees. Sometimes all on the same strand of knotted rope. Considerable wheedling had gotten him a small grant from the Canterlot school to visit, copy, and return with as much yak magical history as possible, then translate it for future generations of scholars.
Without getting smashed by a yak like the last researcher.
Personally, he was starting to think the grant was just a way for the teachers to get rid of their worst ex-student. During school, the stress, the competition, the endless class sniping, all had made him a nervous wreck. Eight years of cowering in his dormitory room between classes, not answering mail or seeing visitors, had left him going prematurely bald from stress and with a nervous tic just under his eye, while he still had not managed to pass his exams.
Since flunking out, Sunburst had taken a job in a spellbook store and spent all of his spare time happily reading the various tomes for sale, making personal notes and being thankful about not being in school any more. His present job allowed him to regain his confidence, regrow his mane, and even sprout a small goatee which bothered his mother something fierce when she visited. And it left him with the free time and spare change to research his favorite spells on his own, without having to obey somepony else’s stringent plans about what he could do or what his life was going to be like every minute of every day.
It was like school, without all the bad parts.
“One ticket to adventure, please.” He pushed the pile of bits forward to the ticket salespony, who regarded them with the same bland enthusiasm as if he had dropped a hoof-full of gravel on the counter. “I mean… to the Yak empire, please.”
“North…” The train station was nearly uninhabited in this murky pre-dawn hour, but the mare in line behind Sunburst was close enough that her warm breath was blowing right against his tail. His thick cloak normally protected his thin hide from such indignities, but she brushed up against him again while continuing to mutter quietly under her breath.
“Ticket to Yakyakistan,” said the ticket mare. “Red-eye special or day rates?”
“Red-eye, obviously,” responded Sunburst. “That’s why I’m here, after all. If I wanted the day rates—”
“Your tickets,” said the mare, pushing the flat pieces of paper through the counter hole in the window. “Next!”
“But I have change coming,” protested Sunburst before being jostled from behind again. “Excuse me, young—”
Turning around put Sunburst nose-to-nose with a pony that he had never expected to meet. A much more impressive mare than he expected, too, although most of that was probably due to her immense bulk. The Princess of Love stood on the train station decking just a hoofstep away from him, her eyes hooded closed in the darkness of the night and her mane tangled around her head like a snarl of spider webs.
Even then, she was more beautiful than any mare Sunburst had ever seen before.
“North,” breathed Princess Cadenza again. “North.”
talk about a rough job interview. Especially when you didn't even know you were applying for the job.
Shit shit shit I knew I've been neglecting something
My bad!
I didn't check the outline document in like months