And just a day later - Chapter seven: True North

With this chapter we return to the OC Slamjam competition. Finding a scenario to integrate the remotely stationed Evergreen into Firefly's story was a bit of a challenge. Most authors in the contest had ponies either visiting Evergreen's forest, or had her investigating some crime elsewhere. I chose the former, and used the story to move the timeline of the personal caster revolution forward a few years, to a stage where Firefly was rich, famous, and to an extent feeling confused about what he should do next.

The only problem was that I couldn't see a computer caster geek like Firefly going to woods by himself, so the obvious solution (to me) was for him to invite Falcata along. This presented a bit of a problem, as Falcata tends to make space for herself in any story where she is involved. When I submitted this entry to the competition I (deservedly) was criticized for not giving the new OC (Evergreen) as much wordage as I should have. My only defence here is that I really did go quite deep into Evergreen's character and motivation in taking this lonely posting.

Several of my readers have commented to me that this was my strongest submission to the OC Slamjam. However, how my story would have fared against an actual opponent, I'll never know. Evergreen's author did not submit a story for the round and so I won by default, advancing me into the OC Slamjam Finals.

Next week, the closing chapters of Wizards of Everfree Valley.