All These Midnight Days: 90% complete · 9:51am Sep 19th, 2020
It's coming. It's happening. It's... probably a week away. Maybe.
Unless it doesn't.
But it shouldn't.
Perhaps...
In other news:
I've started doing reviews with the wonderful folks at the My Little Reviews & Feedback group. So, if you want my brutally honest opinion on your story, I'm available there.
And, since it's almost three AM and I'm feeling peculiar... how about I let ya'll in on a sneak peak of what's going on with a story in the works? Just one quick scene. The sequel, of sorts, to Anarchy: Pony of Chaos...
Rainbow Dash missed her old life, somedays. Waking up around ten, busting clouds for a few hours, and then Wonderbolt practice until it was time to sleep again. Add, rinse, repeat. Break that up with a couple good adventures and the seasonal battle against the forces of evil, all alongside her friends, and she would say she had a pretty good life.
There were some advantages to her life now, however. And it wasn’t like all the stuff from before wasn’t still true today. Sure, she had to wake up at the crack of dawn to help with the chores before Wonderbolt practice. But she also got to wake up in the warm embrace of a hard-headed cowpony she loved more than anything else. Cloud-pillows were soft. But the hard muscles of an Apple were so much more supportive.
Getting her own cider ration was also a nice bonus to marrying into the family. Couldn’t lie about that. Couldn’t lie about a lot of things, being married to a living lie detector.
Still, waking up at dawn wasn’t easy. The rooster’s crow was a harsh alarm clock.
Which was why, on this particular morning, Rainbow became concerned when the first sliver of sunlight hit her face… in utter silence.
“Huh?” she slowly lifted herself up from her bed, careful to disentangle herself from Applejack without waking her. With autumn coming down the pipe, Dash knew she’d soon have to say goodbye to waking up with AJ in her forelegs, summer being slow enough to allow the hardest-working Apple to take a little extra time for herself. Otherwise, AJ’d be up more than an hour before sunup.
Rainbow’s ears twitched. Alright, there wasn’t no sound. Just… not a rooster sound.
It sounded like somepony was clearing their throat.
And then, the yodeling started.
Rainbow Dash, eyes still half-shut, dragged herself over to the window, and opened it with an annoyed grunt.
What she saw… defied description.
“Dashie?” a groggy, folksy voice piped up from the bed, “What’s goin’ on?”
Well, crap. Guess I gotta give describing it a shot then.
“Anarchy.”
Applejack waited a moment. And another. When no further explanation was forthcoming, she trudged her own way over to the window.
“D’ye mean anarchy, like… somethin’ crazy goin’ on? Or ye talking ‘bout Fluttershy’s… what the hay?”
There was an apple tree directly across from Dash and Applejack’s window, right where the corner of the southeast orchard met the front yard or so of the farm, proper. Jeremy, Granny had named it. It was a good tree, always providing its fruit, come rain or shine, on time and without complaint.
Right now, however, it was playing host to something… weird.
Atop the tree sat a strange figure. A butter-yellow pegasus filly with a bright-pink mane. A little on the thin side, all told. But this wasn’t Fluttershy. Oh, it was half her, to be sure. But what with the blue bat-wings, the fluffy white eyebrows, the crimson and yellow eyes…
Anarchy was cute, in a sort of horrifying, Ponequus Princess of Chaos sort of way.
So, Ann sat atop Jeremy. And she was fully dressed in lurid green lederhosen. As the sun rose, slowly, over Sweet Apple Acres, this strange, pony-draconequus hybrid, the child of Kindness and Chaos… serenaded the morning with a yodel that would make a grown mountain-stallion weep.
Trouble was, so were the apples on Jeremy. They harmonized well; Rainbow couldn’t deny that. Though, while she stared, uncomprehending at the sight of an all-apple yodeling choir, Applejack turned her eyes down towards the ground.
Sugar Mac, Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle’s son, and her nephew, was sitting beneath the tree, playing a washboard. And right next to him, she could see Cheese Slice Pie on the cider-jug, accompanied by Ann’s charge, the once – and to be honest, still – villainous Cozy Glow, who mostly just glowered at everypony around her. Which included Maud and Mudbriar’s little filly, Petrification Dendrite Pie, or Petra, on the harmonica. The purple filly had a bouncy silver-grey mane that reminded Applejack a little too much of Pinkie Pie most days. Now, especially.
It was all very strange. Very weird.
Chaotic, as it were.
There wasn’t even an explanation for where the horns, accordions, or drum were coming from. The bluegrass instruments, it appeared, were doing a fantastic impression of an Oompa band.
“Mondays,” Dash sighed, “Ponyville style.”
Applejack snorted, “If’’n she does anythin’ funny to poor Jeremy…”
As soon as the performance began, it ended. Ann finished off the song with a fantastical trill of her vocal cords, just as the music climaxed. The foals beneath the tree gave a little whoop at the song’s conclusion, which seemed to prompt the apples… the fruit, specifically… to applaud.
With what appendages they did this, neither Applejack nor Rainbow Dash could say.
Anarchy smiled sweetly, and gave the two mares a cheery wave. Then, with the sound of a balloon popping, she vanished into a pink flash of light. Cozy, bound to the strange filly by magic of some sort, went with her.
“Mornin’ Aunties!”
Dash and Applejack glanced down to their niece and nephews, who were now waving up at the window as well.
Sugar Mac smiled, completely oblivious to the look his Aunts were throwing his way.
“Lookit! Cheese an’ Petra came te visit!”
Applejack sighed. And then, she shut the window. The Apple matriarch looked to her wife, and the two mares shared a long, hard look.
“It’s gonna be one of those days, ain’t it?”
Rainbow Dash, blinking slowly, and wondering if there was any amount of coffee that could possibly wake her up at this point, just shrugged in utter defeat.
“Eeyup…”
Sleep well!
Nooo... I want the story to keep going..
its sooo good
If only Great-Uncle Apple Strudel were here to see this.
Horrifying but fascinating.