Some Old Writings... · 7:10pm Sep 19th, 2017
Dated October 30, 2014. This was to have been part of the Sunverse and may still be. The character names are real as I've had this massive story building since 'When the Sun Comes' was written. I've been fiddling around with concepts and ideas since, never sure on how to start the story.
To keep the premise short: Volcanoes erupt around the world, poisoning the air and driving humanity to the brink of extinction. Princess Celestia, who has had an eye on earth for some time, gifted various nations (note: not world leaders) with a means to get in touch with her for 'apocalyptic events'. Mass extinction falls under that catagory.
Here's an example of my attempts for the story. Think of it as me doing a little character building. It's messy, it's unedited, but here you go!
Adarra Wadhwa felt nervous anticipation while her mother picked and plucked at her simple sun yellow dress. The straps were wreathed in leaves and small white blossoms. A white veil was held in place by a wreath of more flowers entwined in a silver tiara, made by a local jeweller. For now, the veil was pulled up and over her head. Her mother gave her ensemble a critical eye. Maya Wadhwa was shorter, having grown a bit in plumpness as she spent much of her time bustling around a kitchen. Both women looked alike. Adarra imagined herself looking not unlike her mother in the coming years.
Standing on a stool in the middle of a small room for the past half hour was beginning to make her legs ache. Again, it might have had more to do with her nerves combined with her dislike of having to stand in one place for longer than a few minutes. She was an active young lady.
Maya pursed her lips, her dark eyes darting about as if daring a stray thread to catch her eye. “The dress is too simple,” she groused, not looking up at her daughter. The dress had to have something else to offend her, for she never questioned her daughter’s choice. It was the girl’s wedding and thus her choice of what she wanted to wear.
“It’s a lovely dress,” quipped a third occupant in the room. It spoke Hindi with a bit of an accent. Both women turned and smiled at a purple maned pony in a gray pelt. The pony, specifically a unicorn, was admiring the attire. She switched to Equestrian. “It’s so simplistic in its beauty and allows dear Adarra to show off her beautiful eyes and luxurious mane. She makes a breathtaking bride. I fear the groom will faint when he lays eyes upon her.”
“She’s marrying a brute,” growled Maya, which drew a stern momentary glare from her daughter. She did not relent. “He’s a...a...a malcontent!” Maya’s grasp of Equestrian was quite good. She spoke it better than she spoke English. “A troublemaker! He’s a country oaf!”
“Mother,” Adarra chided. “Earl is a good man. He does not like the city and he is uncomfortable around unicorns. Canterlot is a unicorn city.”
“A man…,” huffed the elder woman. “A boy. A prankster boy!” She wailed dramatically, flinging her hands in the air, glaring at the amused unicorn. “My eldest daughter, my jewel, my dearest child with whom I carried beneath my heart is marrying an American cowboy.” Her voice dropped as though her words had been tossed over a cliff and into the maw of doom.
“You like him, Mother,” reminded Adarra with a sigh. “I clearly remember you pinching his cheek the first time you met him.” Her Equestrian was flawless. She preferred speaking it, though Hindi was expected in her family’s home.
“I didn’t know you were going to marry him at the time,” grunted Maya with a roll of her eyes. She found an offending thread on the hem of her daughter’s dress and looked at the unicorn. “Might I have the scissors, Unique?”
A pair encased in the soft telltale glow of unicorn levitation magic were floated to the older woman. “Thank you.” Maya snipped away the offending bit of thread and smoothed out the hem with her fingers. “Much better.”
She stood up, holding the scissors out to Unique. The unicorn took it with her telekinetic grasp and put it away. Her eyes went to her daughter’s wealth of long, black hair. It shone in the light and was healthy, falling about her back and shoulders. A singular lock fell over her left ear and over her collar. Maya brushed it over the shoulder, clucking and fretting under her breath. Numerous small hoops of gold pierced both ears.
“You look wonderful, Adarra,” chirped Unique. The unicorn had remained in her seat, simply enjoying Maya go over her daughter with frayed nerves and a sense that everything had to be absolutely perfect. As Adarra’s best friend and bridesmaid, the unicorn was getting a very intriguing look into human courtship and marriage rituals. The past six months had been mostly confusing and a lot of fun. She was blown over when she heard all four princesses had been invited and had even accepted the wedding invitation. Well, considering Earl Gray’s father was a prominent diplomat and a key figure in human relations with the other sapient beings on Equus, the princesses were more than happy to attend.
Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were both godmothers to his children, so of course they would love to attend the pending matrimonial services of their youngest godson to the daughter of Maya Wadhwa, a good friend of Thurmond Gray. Adarra asked Earl what it was like to have beings like the princesses as godmothers once. His response was given in the form of a low whistle and a shake of his head, finished with a sheepish grin. “I don’t even know where to begin,” he said to her.
Earl Gray, the groom-to-be, was a bit of a rebel, had reservations against magic, and hated cities. Maya did love the boy and was more than willing to accept him as her son-in-law, but she could not show that openly. Somebody had to keep a level head and point out his flippant disregard for conformity. Why, she nearly fainted when he expressed his urge to explore the world and see the wild, untamed civilizations abroad.
She fumed when he pointedly told her it just wasn’t natural for pegasi to manipulate the weather. The world could manage her own weather, he proclaimed. There was no harmony in forcing the weather to bend to the will of magic.
“He’s enlisting into Luna’s little private army,” Adarra sighed, her smile fading. “He’ll be gone for five years to parts unknown.” When she looked at her mother, tears were forming. “I want him to be mine before he goes.”
“Now, now,” her mother fussed, taking a handkerchief from one of the pockets in her dress and dabbing away at her daughter’s eyes. “No tears on your wedding day.”
Adarra felt a muzzled pushing into her left hand. “Your mother is correct, Adarra. No tears on your wedding day!” Unique pushed her way up into her friend’s hand and was rewarded with fingers petting through her mane. The unicorn’s shoulder came halfway up the young woman’s thigh. “Come now, let’s see a smile! You’d better do it before Pinkie’s sense takes in effect and she comes in here, singing one of her cheer-up songs.”
Both women laughed weakly, then looked in silent horror at each other.
Earl Lee Gray was a good example of the typical human recently graduated from Equestria’s finest military academy. He was lean, toned, and ‘easy on the eyes’, as Adarra once told him. Physically, he could not hope to compete with the locals, but humans had the marvelous advantage of agility and dexterity. Two years past twenty, he was five foot ten and a solid one hundred eighty pounds. His family was a long line of redheads and he was no different. It was cropped short, close to a buzzcut. Green eyes glinting with mischief beheld the world around him. The young man was clean shaven, the faint markings of a horizontal scar on his left cheek barely visible. There was another one in the slight cleft of his chin from an errant elbow.
He was getting married. Six years of waiting while he and his bride-to-be settled the course they had chosen in life was finally going to end.
