“Are you sure?” Starlight asked.
“Yes,” both Sandy Line and Shore Line said.
Sandy added, “We haven’t seen him since yesterday, we’ve asked Dr. Lovejoy where our son went, and he said that all he remembers is that Finishing asked him to tell us goodbye before he left.” She wept, “We’ve been looking everywhere for him and we couldn’t find any trace of him. It’s as if he outright disappeared!”
“I’ve tried talking to everypony else in the village,” Shore added, “and even they hadn’t seen him either. We’re at lost of what to do.”
The violet unicorn leaned up against the wall with a hoof under her chin. “Something’s not right here. First Lilly, and now Finishing, what’s changed?”
“They’ve run away, didn’t they!” Sandy questioned. “Our little colt said he hated here.”
“But how would he leave?” Starlight raised an eyebrow, “I mean, we’re surrounded by desert, and the train doesn’t come but once a week. Besides, nopony told me anything was taken. Not water, food or anything. If they ran away, then someone would notice a bag of flour or a canteen of water was gone.”
“You mean you think that our colt is still in the town?” the father asked.
“Where else could they have gone to? It’s here, the opal quarry or the greenhouses, although I don’t know why they would go outside of those places since we have the only source of water for miles.”
“What about that doctor?” the mother wondered aloud. Starlight asked what she meant by that, “Think about it, ever since he came, Lilly vanished, Starting had his leg broken, and now Finishing is gone too. You don’t think that he… did something to them?”
“What does that prove?” Starlight questioned, “The doctor is an old, frail stallion, and a doctor too. The disappearances and his arrival have to be a coincidence. We can’t just jump to conclusions when we don’t know all the facts yet.”
“She’s right,” Shore Line patted his wife’s back, “We don’t know if he has anything to do with it at all.”
“Even so,” Sandy said, “I don’t want Starting anywhere near him.”
“But what could he do? He’s the only one who knows how to treat his injuries.”
Starlight looked out of her window, down towards the sleepy doctor in his rocking chair with the phonograph. “Your husband’s right. Lovejoy is the only trained doctor we have for miles. So for the time being, until your son heals or he dies, he’s still useful to this village.”
The mother sniffed, “Alright, but I’m not allowing Starting being completely alone with him for now on.”
“Sandy, he’s just an old stallion, what possible harm could he do?”
“Excuse me, Lovejoy?”
The stallion woke up with a snort, “Huh! What?” He blinked, “I wasn’t sleeping!”
He heard a giggle; he looked up to find a blue pegasus with a white mane there. “Sorry to disturb you, sir,” she said pointing at the phonograph, “But I’m afraid your music ended a while ago.”
“Oh,” Lovejoy turned and saw the needle waving at the near center of the record. He turned the turntable off and pulled out some of the records nearby it. “I’m very sorry about that, I just dozed off for a moment and didn’t notice.”
“You’re fine, it’s my turn to check up on you,” the mare stretch a hoof to him, “Name’s Night Glider by-the-way.”
“Good afternoon,” he shook her hoof. Turning back to the small collection, he selected a record to be played. “Ah, here’s a good one.” After recoiling the spring of the phonograph and carefully placing the needle down, the drifting sounds of a piano were heard from it.
Night Glider looked at the horn of the machine, “What is it?”
“It’s by Mousier Debussy, called Reverie. In Prench, it literally means ‘Daydream.’”
“It sounds very pretty, I’ll give you that.”
Lovejoy nodded, “Is there anything you need of me?”
“No. I was told to see how you’re doing and if you need anything.”
He sat up in his rocking chair, “Not at the moment. I was resting from the whole commotion from this morning. You’ve heard what’s going on, right?”
“In a way, I think so.” She sat down next to the elderly stallion, “Finishing Line has disappeared too and the little guy’s parents are really upset.”
The old unicorn snorted, “That’s putting it kindly. I got yelled at by her, blaming me for letting him run away. Saying that I’m a bad influence or something like that, honestly, I didn’t know he was unhappy here.”
“That’s weird, nopony has ever left before.” She was given a puzzled look, “What?”
“Nopony has ever left here? How can that be?”
“Well,” she chuckled, “It’s because we really like it h-”
“No, no, no, no. That’s not what I mean. There’s something I don’t understand here.” He looked at her in the eyes and asked, “I’ve noticed this place doesn’t have a farm, or anything valuable to trade for food. Where does Starlight Glimmer find the means to pay for these things?”
The pegasus blinked, “You mean nopony told you? We have an opal quarry about half a mile from here, and we grow our own vegetables in the caves nearby.”
“Opals, you say?”
“Well, we don’t need it per-say. After all, nopony wears any jewelry, and in a place like this, it wouldn’t make sense. But since Starlight noticed that growing any food is very difficult out here, she made a deal with some outsiders that they’ll trade food, cloth, barrels, wood or whatever we needed for several buckets full of opals every week. We’ve agreed that we would take turns to go to the opal quarry to mine out the opals once a week. However, we do spend the rest of the week looking after our little gardens.”
“You don’t say? Now tell me Night, about this quarry, how long does one spend working there?”
“Oh,” she put her hoof to her chin, thinking for a moment, “Let’s see… It takes about an hour to go there and back… Then we would spend a good six hours at work, including a lunch break so… Seven hours once a week.”
“How old does one have to be to work at this quarry?”
“Well, Starlight wouldn’t allow the foals to go near that place to work until they’re fifteen years of age.”
“Fifteen you say?” Lovejoy raised an eyebrow. “How safe are the working conditions of this place?”
“They’re pretty safe, I mean, all we have to do is that we harvest them after we’ve dug the opals out, we then immediately replant a little bit of it back so it’ll grow more. We do this because opals take a long time to grow. This is why Starlight had divided the quarry into parts so that while one part is planted, another can be dug out. And we only carry on our backs a certain amount of weight so we can carry it back to Our Town to be collected.”
“Interesting, but you do realize that you’ve described to me a kind of rock farm rather than a quarry, right?”
She tilted her head, “There’s a difference?”
“Nevermind, and does Starlight Glimmer ever lend a hoof in the Quarry?”
Night Glider paused for a moment, “I think so... and I don’t see why she wouldn’t.”
“Think so? What does that mean? Have you ever seen her at that place?”
“Well… I haven’t, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have just as much work like the rest of us.”
“I see, and what about the other days that you don’t work in this quarry?”
“Oh,” the mare grinned, “Then Starlight would have us check up on our little gardens in the caves over there.”
“You have a garden growing in a cave?”
Night Glider nodded, “Uh-huh. Everypony has one. The reason why it’s underground is that growing anything, especially in the summer, would wither our crops. That’s why they’re in caves. It doesn’t get too hot or cold, and in the ceiling, they’re solar stones that give the plants the light they need.”
“So like an underground greenhouse then?”
“Exactly! It gives us something to do, and that way, nopony goes hungry.”
“What do you grow?”
“Things like potatoes, carrots, radishes, onions, or any plant that grows in the dirt. I was told they tried growing grain, tomatoes, and sugar cane once... but it didn’t turn out so well.”
“So that’s why certain things like flour have to be imported. But why not sugar?”
Night Glider shrugged, “Starlight said it was too expensive for the time being. But every so often we would get honey if we’re lucky.”
Lovejoy took a mental note in the back of his mind to ask Starlight about these underground greenhouses. “A little change in subject, where are you from?”
“Cloudsdale,” she replied.
“And, how long have you stayed here?”
“Tomorrow will be my first year in Our Town.”
The stallion nodded, “And, what circumstance did you came here for?”
She rolled her shoulders a bit, “By good luck. You see, I’ve graduated high school there, and I’ve wanted to prove to my folks that I can live on my own, you know? I started out with a rented apartment and got a job at the weather reserves. Yet, I had dreams of joining the Wonderbolts, to show off all the skills I’ve learned from sports I’ve done in school. So, I quit my job, following my dream for fame and fortune to make my parents pound…”
When Night trailed off, Lovejoy’s psychological instincts kicked in, “But that’s not what happened, right?”
She shook her head, “I didn’t get in. I went to their boot camp… and… I couldn’t take it. Within three days, I left it behind me. Now, here I was, a mare with overdue rent, no job, and I couldn’t bring myself to go to my parents to ask for help, making them think that I failed. So… I ran away, I went North until I came across this place. Here, I have a home, food, some time to work, and friends on equal terms.”
“I see, now Night Glider,” the doctor stopped rocking, “I have to ask, are you happy?”
“Well,” she said, “I can say that I’m grateful,” and added a forced smile to it.
“I didn’t ask if you were grateful, I’m asking if you’re happy here.”
She leaned towards the street; making sure nopony was listening in, “As great as this place is, I… feel like something’s missing.”
Lovejoy frowned, “Missing? What’s keeping you from being happy?”
“Can you keep a secret?” she asked and he nodded. “As good as this place is to provide shelter, food and a bit of work… You’re the first one I’ve told but… I don’t exactly feel… free.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“Well, living here, if there is to be any harmony among us, we have to follow a set of rules that Starlight puts down. Like we can’t venture out after sunset, we have to take turns, we can’t have anything we can’t share… those kinds of things. Tell me; is it selfish of me to want more out of this kind of life?”
He shook his head, “No ma’am. In a way, I can relate easily.”
“How so?”
“When I was younger, before I had my cutie mark, I was a colt from a wealthy family in Canterlot. At the time, I’ve fallen in love with making art out of anything. Watercolors, pencils, pens, markers, you name it. I’ve always had this drive to create something wonderful. My parent’s however, couldn’t see me having this kind of future when the time comes to support myself. ‘Artist nowadays earn next to nothing Reverie,’ my mother used to say, ‘Why not you look for something that’s more useful, like a Lawyer, or a Doctor, or even part of the Solar Guard?’ My parents, my mother especially, really pushed for me to have this kind of future to the point where she only gave me books about the pony’s body, gave me toys that were plastic doctor’s equipment, and would hide away my drawings. When I got my cutie mark that would guide me as a doctor and not an artist, you could say that I was heartbroken.”
“That’s awful,” Night said.
He shook his head, “When ponies feel robbed of what freedom they had, they want to be creative. While I studied in medical schools and read books of the workings of the pony’s body and mind, I found a way I could express my innermost thoughts. And that was from photography. I could capture moments in time of beauty to be preserved for all time. Yet, my medical practice demanded that it needed more attention, so for a while, I was completely miserable, until I’ve met a teacher that opened my… imagination let’s say, to what I could do both as a doctor, and an artist. His name was Dr. Red Cross, and from him, I’ve gained inspiration at what I could take the mundane practice of medicine and use photography to turn it into an art.”
“Wow, so you’ve figured out how to have your cake and eat it too?”
Lovejoy chuckled, “Oh you have no idea.”
“Do you think I could see these pictures sometime?”
While the doctor thought about it, he noticed that the music had died out. Turning to the phonograph, he said, “Perhaps a little later on. But for now, I should get back inside,” he yawned, “I feel a little sleepy today.”
“Okay,” she stood up to spread her wings, “Thanks for letting me visit you.”
As she took flight, she heard from behind, “Night Glider, if you need to talk to me, about anything at all, let me know so I can help you become happy again.”
Night nodded, “I’ll think it over,” she told him as she flew down the street.
Oh god...
I'm probably gonna be sayin' that a lot in this story.
Glad Night Glider didn't end up dead in this chapter. Hope she'll last the entire story though...
so Our Town economy is based on lazy the exploitation opal rocks? I would have imagined that they would do much better at having farm rocks to produce it rather then just dig for it one a week. Still I wander what do the rest of the town do during the rest of the time; idle hooves gives time for ponies to think for themselves as well as making Sedition thoughts and that is something that I would expect Starlight loaves to let them do, what other things do they do to keep the town running?
7048642 Do you want me to rewrite it?
7048737 not necessarily , I just though that the poking the subject might give an interesting respond and I think of finding a very creative answer to your own glaring contradictions is a lot of fun to see. My best suggestion would be that that Nightgliver or what ever her name said that it was a quarry because she doesn't know the deference between that and a rock farm and that she isn't really the most curious pony around. opal is has its value, but grows very slowly and ones they start to grow in a certain aria it will constantly back and doesn't need so much tending to like other rocks. That and the town doesn't have a farm land but have underground green houses instated because of the low population is small enough for it to support it and it wouldn't fall pray to the harsh climate especially sens climate control can be done by all ponies instead of just the pegassy, and that they could get fresh food all year round except for some things lit sugar an flower that they would need to import at the moment and would necessitate preparing lot of land that they don't have the ponypower to do it at the moment.
Still I would wander why an entire pony family would want to move to such a remote place, what made the parents move away from their previous house to think that Our Town would be better for them? I supposed that they had accumulated heavy deth that they couldn't pay anymore so they when into hiding to Our Town to escape the dept collectors.
7048813 I'll tell you what, since I had a bit of a long day, before I could begin with the next chapter, I'll go back on this one to add in your suggestion. Along with the idea of having underground greenhouses (Maybe built in the side of a mountain or in one of the caves there. Probably say that they're only grow certain vegetables like carrots and potatoes (or something the lines of that)). To be honest, I'm fascinated that you're more interested in how the village itself works then the character development, their pasts, or the fact that practically anyone in Our Town is in danger of being turned into an art piece if they said yes to the happy question. Then again, I'll take what I can get. So, for future reference, if you see a plot hole in the story, suggestions like this are very useful for me to think about.
7048813 Okay, I've just expanded the conversation a bit between Lovejoy and Night Glider about the quarry and the underground greenhouses. Is there anything else, I would like to get to work on the next chapter about those greenhouses?
7051081 sorry i didn't thought that you would go as far as to rewrite the chapter because of by comment, I just thought that you would fix the confusion in the next chapter. As far as I can tel it is pretty much all there, and I think you mange to make the conversation more natural with the doctor correcting Night Glider for the confusion with the distinction between a rock farm and a quarry, and make the joke about not understanding how can rocks grow. Maybe you add later that opal need a certain type of magical soil of sort to grow that Our Town just so happen to be near it and that the ore yield was too small for a full mining operation and that Our Town has the deed to dig their. The The underground green houses seem to be good but for some reason it make it sound like each group ponies have to take care a different green house and that their a severals of them under the town or near by. I think having multiplies green houses might be a good idea, as in if on in infected with a disease or a bacteria the other croups might be spared that faith in case of a food crises and can rotate crop cycles. Hope this gives you a few ideas for the good doctor to do.
7049097 Well, sense you have shown that this is going to be Saw like story where the protagonist is a remorseless psychopath serial killer that has put the arbitrary rule of killing his victims only if he is content in the moment they are living their living in, just so that it makes it more complicate his selection of his victims to complicated for the fun of it, under the pretext of a foalhood dissatisfaction, I can’t really help but to take a clinical detachment to the situation of the tragedy that is unfolding and examine it in the same manner as the doc would, and see what cruel means to kill his victims. But in actuality I am very worry about what will happen to the townsfolk of Our Town, but I know that they are just the tools for the story which you will torture them, so to worry for them is a forgone conclusion in my mind, you would need to present much interesting backstory to the characters you’re going to kill for me to sympathies with their like, their past, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their strengths their weaknesses. The point of the syncopate is to clinically examine/study every aspect of their victims’ live. They want to understand them, think like them, to be them, to know how to manipulate them however they want them to react, to put them in a desired state of mind before moving in for the kill to finally reach their paroxysm that they crave. What they want in the end is absolute control of their victims’ lives in their hands. Your story is trying to put the reader in the mindset of the psychopath and the thrill of killing incense is part of of the fun of reading it.
What has fascinated me ever sense I discovered FLP and by extension Fimfiction is how people go about speculating how Equestrian pony biology works their society work along with their technology. What you have to understand about the ponies of MLP Fim is that they are not human, their psychology would be very different form our own, they are another culture entirely despite the similarities and that you can’t just put the same rules to them as we have for ourselves; you have to adapt the rules to suite our understanding of how things work for them. There is also the other aspect that the show focuses a lot on the world building, with constantly showing so many new characters, of who the pony world work despite always staying ambiguous about the details of the facts to leave it to viewers interpret what things in a lot of different ways. there is enough material to work with to adapt peoples stories into anything they want without having to be constrained of always having to refer to our own history to make the reference or don’t need to create all of it from scratch.
In this case, what I like about Starlight Glimmer’s Our Town, is that she is trying to create an almost completely self-sufficient community that can stay isolated from the rest of the world and as much as most people think it is a really hard thing to do especially when you have to rely on the community to solve its own problems. As much as I like fantasy stories, they tend to gloss over the fundamentals on how small communities work and don’t go really into detail about their lifestyle or customs, the different trades that communities needed to survive together. Early settlers has fascinated me for many reason most of all, because of their isolation of where they are, that they can’t really count on any outside help, recourses are shares and didn’t had the money to order replacement marital that breakdown, so they have to improvise some solutions and became jack of all trade build their own tools and furniture to cut down on cost in order for their family to survive. We also then to forget that agriculture is the cornerstone of civilizations and it is what allows them to grow the population expand trade, have other more specialized rades to support them, have elite class to develop new technologies and better administrate them and afford to raze an army to invade others nation, that fact is still very much true even to this day and without it society would crumble because our society is so focuses on speciation skills.
In Starlight’s Our Town, I wander how she tries to apply her philosophy of everypony is equal to another to her community, for whatever sense she means it especially how it apply to . For what I understand or how I like to think of what Startlight want to create a cult commune that revolves around the idea that everypony roles are interchangeable in their tasks and anyone showed know how to do the job of all the others in at least the most basic ways. I would imagine that everypony have been thought taught the rudiments of how to tend to fields, to do masonry, to do carpentry, blacksmithing, basket weaving and other necessary skills to keep the town running.
In the end result, like all cults leaders, Starlight wants to control the lives of the inhabitants under her interpretation of how the world should function, not that it is necessarily bad if the community but in this case she is ruling by using fanatics, like Double Diamond how strongly believes in her cause; coercion, she has forced ponies to accept her rules and belief with the equalization house, fear, guilt, denunciation and weariness of what comes from the outside. “Animal Farm” would be a great example of the group dynamics she is creating.
I hope my creasy ramblings are of interest to you.
7051523 Okay, I do agree that these potential victims should be given more time to be sorry for. I think at this point the doctor understands that he has to slow his killing rate down a little so that the village doesn't become too suspicious of him.
At the same time, please keep in mind that this isn't my first time writing a story. After all, I've got about thirty under my belt (at least on this site) so I think by now I have a pretty good idea what I'm doing here.
And yes, I understand that fleshing out the how and why this society is standing is important too. I also understand the countless ways that this subject of Starlight's town could be approached. But lets be honest here, which kind of story would you rather read: A detailed history, cultural and workings of every little thing in this or that world that goes as far as to describe how nails and cloth are made; or about a character trying to explain that world from their point of view? For that is what I'm trying to do, try to explain from my (and not the creator's) imagination in how this place works from a unique point of view.
To quote a line from a famous theme song: "You may wonder how he eats and breathes, and other science facts. (La-la-la!) Repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.'"
Please, don't think that I don't appreciate the feedback. Because I do. Whenever someone comments about a way this story can improve that I can do, I do it. If they have a point about a character, I listen. But I beg of you, please remember who's story this is.
7051657 Sorry, I apologize for being overbearing to you in my comments, I never wanted to give you the impression that I am trying to tel you what to do to your story. when I get exited about a story I tend to get very enthusiastic about the story that I like and I will say every little things that comes to mind about the story and i like to see things in as many different angles as I can and I like to pay attention to details. So for the sake of keeping a cordial dialogue between use I will try to contain my comments to the main subject.
again sorry
7051709 You're forgiven. After all, I've learned to take constructive criticism and figure out a way to work my stories with it. Like your question about the family that moved there with the two brothers, of course, I'm planing on addressing it. And the fact that I should really slow down with the killings for a bit is verified. And the whole mummification thing... Don't worry, it's coming up soon.
While I'm gland you're enjoying this, also please do try to relax a bit and enjoy the ride.
Hmmm... first Party Favor admitting that he wants to date a secret admirer, now Night Glider admitting that she feels tied down to the town. I think I see a pattern emerging...