Chapter Five: Reunions
The End of Ponies
by shortskirtsandexplosions
Chapter Five – Reunions
Special Thanks to Demetrius and Vimbert for Editing
Extra Special Thanks to Valhalla-Studios for Cover Art
The last pony's gun glinted in the lanternlight.Pitt shrunk away from her, a trembling mess as he saw the bar about to collapse before his and his brothers' eyes.The irate patrons, too angry or buzzed to think rationally, marched towards the mare and her weapon without hesitation.
Before anything exploded, the double-doors flew wide with a flurry of white snow... and feathers. Golden beaks, glinting goggles, and razor-sharp talons lit the room, followed by a cackling voice: “Whoahhhh-ho-ho-ho! What's all the commotion about? Is there some trouble in my favorite watering hole? H-Huh? Huh? Pitt, what gives?”
Pitt, sweating bullets, gave the pony a sideways glance before murmuring under his breath, “'Trouble always comes to you,' h-huh?” Clearing his throat, he leaped over the bar and spread his monkey arms wide with a voice of forced cheerfulness, “Welllll—If it isn't the Golden Gang! My favorite customers ever—WHOOP!” He wheezed as he was forced into a half-nelson in one of the griffons' feathery grasp. “Eh-heh-heh-heh-Why, we're all one happy family today, aren't w-we?!”
“Abso-positiv-olutely, Pitt ol' pal! Cuz if we weren't a happy family, I might have to clean shop! You wouldn't like me doing that, wouldja? I mean, it is your shop, after all!”
“I-I would certainly hope so... Eh heh heh... Oh, and my brothers' too. The smart ones, at l-least.”
“Right—Like I said. It's your shop. Heheh! Everyone calm down! Take it easy!” The head griffon ruffled the hair around Pitt's bald spot and grinned at the group as she waved her majestic wings and sauntered across the hazy interior on all fours. “It's been a long and crazy week of navigating the wastelands! Take a chill pill and enjoy your drinks! The Golden Gang's here to party like it's the Third Age all over again! Don't stop the rum, barkeep!”
By this time, the pony had retracted her rifle, sheathed it, and slumped herself lethargically against the bar. The angry fire in her eyes had long sizzled out. She watched with a forlorn breath as the burnt and wincing ogre struggled to get up. His friends lifted their buddy from the pile of smoldering splinters, leading him—limping—towards the Den's half-hearted excuse for a lavatory. They glanced back over their thick shoulders and frowned at the pegasus, muttering a crazy assortment of obscenities her way. The other patrons were likewise glaring at her, but, under the sudden beaks of the Golden Gang, they reluctantly returned to their tables.
A long breath escaped the mare's lips. She glanced down at the bar counter, at the leather map that Pitt had rolled out. There was still a scratchy impression left in the dead center of the illustrated brown Wastes from where the baboon had excitedly marked out the infamous coordinates of the Green Flame.
A crown of platinum feathers blocked the image of the map. Looking up, the pony found herself staring into the grinning beak of a tall, muscular griffon. Like her six other companions, the half-avian creature sported a leather brown bomber jacket splayed over with the totems of her fallen enemies, bounties that she and her loyal gang of feathered kin had expertly chased down. Nobody dared question their skill or their tactful mercilessness. They were the esteemed bounty hunters of the Equestrian wastes, the mavericks of the twilight. They were the Golden Gang, and this towering figure looming in front of the pony with a swagger and a grin was the squadron's self-appointed leader.
“Well – Well – Well,” she chuckled, a pair of silver goggles glinting in the lantern light. “If you ain't the last pony on Earth! Why's it that I'm always stumbling in on you when you're about to have your head ripped off by all things that live and breathe?”
The pony exhaled long and hard, suddenly staring at the floor as she muttered, “Then maybe you shouldn't bother with 'stumbling,' Gilda.”
“Ohhh ho ho ho—A little spitfire tonight, aren't we?” The adult griffon grabbed a random mug from a dizzied patron, back-handed him to the floor the moment he protested, and took a big swig. After gulping, Gilda exhaled, wiped her beak, and leaned with her back against the bar beside the pony. “I've known you to take on trolls, harpies, and goddess knows how many stormfronts to get what you need for your clients—But tossing around ogres three times your size in a bar crowded with drunken scallywags? Now that's just silly, Harmony!”
“My name's not—” The pony began, remembered who she was talking to, and deflatedly murmured, “Whatever.”
“Why so glum, kiddo?” With a single, sharp talon, Gilda raised her silver goggles up to her headcrest. An amused pair of amber eyes winked down at the last pony. “You're alive, ain't you?”
“For what it's worth.”
“Well, that's all that matters, isn't it?” She suddenly leaned in, forcing the blinking pony's torso into an iron-wrought sidehug. “For you, that is. Heck, if I died, the 'Golden' mantle would just go to Stowe. But who would the 'prancing' mantle go to if you bit the oats?—Whoops, sorry. Old expression. Tough thing to kick. But, hey, you get the idea.”
“I... think...?”
“Hehehe—” Gilda pinched the brown mare's cheek, her claws nearly breaking the mare's skin. “You're so adorable when you're all confused in the head! That's always been one of my guilty pleasures about your kind. Y'all could be so gosh darn cute at the wrong moments, especially when you got angry.” She cleared her feathery throat. “If Equestria hadn't gotten the burn, I think all ponies would have gone extinct from always shoving their hooves into their mouths!”
“I just came here to do business, Gilda.”
“And look where it got you! Seriously, Harmony, at this rate you'll be skinned and mounted in an exhibit by the next stormfront! You gotta learn how to chill and know your role, girl! In the meantime,” she murmured, nochalantly turning her gaze to scan the ceiling. Her “hug” of the pony tightened suggestively. “I should remind you how important it is that you've always got good 'ol Gilda to cover your flank. This place is filled to the brim with nasty no-goods who have all these cockamamie reasons to detest the existence of a sweet, innocent pony like you. Y'know, I can't always barge in at moments like just now. But, you can still have the Gang's protection at all other times...” Gilda's voice oozed. Meanwhile, a prehensile lion's tail roped up from behind the pegasus and tightened mercilessly around mare's neck. “... if you're smart.”
The pony's scarlet eyes darted towards the living noose ensnaring her. Caught between the bar, Gilda's tail, Gilda's talon, and Gilda's cold shoulder, the pony wilted from deep inside herself. Unenthusiastically, she reached into her saddlebag and produced her pouch of silver, all the strips that she still had left from Gilliam's payment for the Phoenix fire. She cast a look up at her griffon “friend,” and the amber glint that returned was colder than an iceberg. Without a word, the pegasus dropped the strips into Gilda's other talon, turning her head to erase the silver bars from her mind.
The Golden Gang leader brightened immediately. “Clever girl.” She beamed, then produced a shrill whistle. Another griffon about Gilda's height flapped over. “Hey, Stowe—Be true to your name and stow these away into the vault on board the Talon, will ya?”
Stowe was a stone-gray feathered griffon whose beak resembled a perpetually grimacing mask. A scar ran over her left eye, and her jacket was laced with fingerbones belonging to several questionable species. Taking the silver, she launched a glare past Gilda and hissed at the pony, “You better not be holding out on us, blank flank! Or I'll gut you in places you never knew you had—”
“Stowe! Shove off or shove it!” Gilda snapped, kicking a lower foot hard into her second-in-command's gut. “This is my good friend you're barking at, ya overgrown cockatoo!”
“I don't see why you waste your frickin' time,” Stowe spat, gave the pony a lasting snarl, and stomped off. “If ya love the glue stick so much, boss—Just marry it already.”
“Yeah, and we'll mount the wedding cake with your gizzard—Ya loudmouth! Take a hike!” Gilda frowned, then chuckled helplessly as she patted the pony's shoulder. “Pfft—'Blank Flank.' Beats the heck out of me where that psychopath gets her insults. Shoot, she couldn't have gotten it from me! I had loads of fun hanging out with ponies back in the day! But you know that, Harmony. And you know that I'd never insult the hoofed pipsqueaks, even if they were friggin' lame-os from time to time. But hey, that's the checks and balances, right?”
“Right...” The pony sighed, stretching her saddlebags wider over her unmarked brown coat in an absent-minded gesture of yesteryear. “Whatever you say, Gilda.”
“Hey Barkeep!” Gilda raised a talon as she swiveled around towards the counter. “Two rum-and-coconuts! On the double!”
The pony droned, “I don't drink.”
“Kiss my tail-feathers!” Gilda stuck a tongue out. “With me, you will!”
“If you're so concerned with my protection,” the pony sneered at her, “you will let me pilot the Harmony sober.”
“Fine—Fine. You win. Who am I to argue, huh?” Gilda snickered, rhythmically rapping her talon fingers against the bar while smirking at her “friend.” “These are your last days, not mine. Guess you're entitled to live out your life the way you want to, huh?”
“I guess...”
“Well, better get it straight, girl! I mean, it's in your blood, right?” She smirked and pointed. “One of the things I always found quirky about ponies is that they constantly pigeon-holed themselves into doing one particular thing in life. Seriously, I never understood your society, even when it was still standing. It was like a frickin' caste system! Remind me; what was the name of those tattoo-thingies on your butts that y'all got so bent out of shape over?”
“Mmmmmmngh...” The pony snorted.“...cutie marks.”
“Ha—Bwaaaaaa ha ha ha ha!” Gilda pounded the counter with her fist and covered her cackling face until a tear or two shed from her squinting, amber eyes. “Haah haah haah haah—Whewwww—Oh wait, you're serious?”
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“You ponies actually bent your entire civilization around social strata called 'cutie marks?' Pfft—I've heard some pretty sissy things back in my day, but that takes the cake! Heck, no wonder your kingdom friggin' exploded.”
Two mugs were deposited in front of the griffon. Gilda gladly swooped one up, took a swig, belched, and smiled warmly.
“But not all of you were so namby pamby. Why, a better part of my spritely days were spent flying with the best of y'all.” The Gold Gang Leader exhaled in a sudden softness, choosing strategically to lower her pilot's goggles over her eyes. “If it isn't the darndest thing that you're a pegasus. Cuz those were always my favorites: the winged ponies. While the unicorns were all sewing dresses and the dirt ponies shoving plows, it was the pegasi who really showed Equestria a thing or two about being awesome. They burned paths in the sky that mark the mists of twilight even to this day. If ya squint at the swirling ashes just right after a stormfront's cleared, you can see their wingtrails still there. Hmmmmph—Frickin' sky horses; they would have made a good home in this upside down world we call the Wastes.” She took another guzzling sip, breathed, and squinted the pony's way. “Maybe that's why you've fought the grim reaper for as long as you have, eh kiddo?”
“Don't be silly,” the pony murmured, then gave the griffon a postcard smile. “It's all because of your expert protection.”
“And don't ya forget it!” The Gold Gang Leader pointed a talon, downed the last of her mug, belched, and clasped the second one. This time, Gilda lingered with the drink at the edge of her break, her silver goggles fogging briefly in the Den's hazy light. “You were young, kid. Too dang young, if you ask me. But—heck—those are the cards fate dealt. I knew a pegasus or two who would have done even better than you if they were in your place, who wouldn't have needed protection, who would have done just fine... without m-me.” Her feathers ruffled as she gulped hard, this time at the air. “Just one—I remember just one pegasus, c-come to think of it...”
The pony's brow withered as she breathed towards the floor, “I remember her too, Gilda.”
It took several seconds of silence before she realized how identically frozen the both of them were. The haze settled between their cold bodies like mist in the twilight air outside. Clearing her throat, the pony lowered her goggles over moist eyes and stepped away from the bar.
“Well, thanks for everything. I've bothered Pitt enough. It's time that I headed out.” She trotted off. For a moment there, she imagined she was in the clear—but then Gilda's voice called out—
“Hey, Harmony. Before you walk out on the Gang and I...”
The pony stopped in her hooves. She turned and glanced over her flank.
Gilda smirked, her avian head cocked to the side. “I thought I'd mention that Stowe, the girls, and I ran into a friend of yours recently.”
“A friend? You do remember who you're talking to, right?”
“Heheh. Some toxic-lunged chipmunk named 'Bruce.' Talks like there're marshmallows in his mouth. We did a little... er... business with him the other day; did he mention that?”
The pony stared fixedly at her. She replied, “I haven't heard anything of the sort.”
“Yeah, well, the little scamp gets around. Not as much as you, of course. But when Stowe's scarred face freaked him out, he suddenly went on and on about some crazy nonsense.”
“What kind of nonsense?”
Gilda sipped from her mug, gulped, then uttered, “Something about green flame. Plumes of it, shooting up in random places across the wastelands. From what I hear, the crud's really valuable. Like, you might as well have a leprechaun piss gold right into a jar for ya! Hah!” She gave another sip while a crest feather atop her forehead rose. “You wouldn't happen to have seen this sort of stuff in your travels, huh? Seems like something that would be right up your alley!”
The pegasus looked Gilda's way. Her goggles shielded the griffon from seeing her eyes dart from the Golden Gang Leader to the leather map left on the bar counter and back. “I... will let you know if I hear anything, Gilda.” She smiled briefly and waved a hoof. “It's the least I can do for my best protector.”
Gilda saluted back. “Dang straight, kiddo. Have a safe flight—And don't be picking fights with ogres, ya hear?”
“Right...” The pony turned around, trotted out, and muttered under her breath, “Ogres...”
The pony pulled the lever once, twice, thrice—Finally, in a deep hum, the signal lit up. The fresh flamestone burned prismatically into the seven lenses as the artificial rainbow surged high into the twilight, ten times brighter than before.
It was three dozen hours since her venture to the M.O.D.D. The pony had returned to the plateau for her regular lighting of the spectrum. But as she trotted back from the sight, breathing heavily from the physical effort of forcing life into the machine, her expression waned into a wilting grimace. As amazingly bright as the well-paid-for effect was, it somehow seemed dimmer.
Perhaps it was the creaking noise of the chains moored to the hovering Harmony overhead. Perhaps it was the harsh flurry of snow that dipped surprisingly low for that moment of time between stormfronts. Perhaps it was the taste of blood that resurfaced in the pegasus' bruised mouth. Something was distracting her, so that after ten minutes of staring, she realized that her gaze was fixed on one color of the spectrum and one color alone: the green band.
She exhaled in a gust of frustration; the multiple mishaps of her brief visit to the M.O.D.D. bled down through a curtain of numbness to pinprick her all over. She kicked at the stony earth, and a few clumps of powder splashed unexcitingly across a rusted metal barricade or two, mocking her lonely ire. The permeating silence of the abandoned plateau prophesied to her yet another fruitless night of guarding an unseen spotlight, so that she wondered if the only thing a rainbow dared to dance for was the creature that conjured the spectral band in the first place.
Everything the pony struggled and suffered for—the strips and the flamestones and the lighting rig—all paled to a bone-white malaise, all except for one color. It was the one color that she suddenly refused to look at, the one color that she hated, because she knew beneath all her pathetically collapsible layers of skin that she was afraid of it.
“It's not worth it,” the last pony spoke directly to herself, something she hadn't done in years. “The green flame isn't worth going back there.” She clutched the rifle to her chest in what briefly looked like an infantile hug, before she rolled her scarlet eyes, slid her goggles down, and climbed lethargically up the guard tower where she knew she would sit for several hours, waiting for nothing.
Long after, in the gently swaying haze of the Harmony's upper cabin, the pegasus was lying on her hammock, chest first, her head swimming in the rhythmic lulls of Octavia's strings. Before her, bathed in golden lamplight, the pages of Princess Celestia's Diary spread wide, their ivory surfaces lilting under mighty golden penstrokes of a Goddess long gone. The last pony dutifully read and re-read the same silkily scribed words as she had so many times before, committing the holy paragraphs to memory, turning them over in her mind, allowing the eloquent passages to sweep her away from the flurrying gray mist outside the airship's portholes.
Halfway through the habitual read, a rough gust of turbulence struck the Harmony. The vessel harmlessly buckled for the briefest of seconds, and, in the ensuing jolt, Octavia's record momentarily skipped with an offensive scratching sound.
It was enough to snap the mare out of her umpteenth perusal of the Princess' journal, so that her eyes blinked and refocused squarely on one particular passage that suddenly stood out from the rest. It was an entry dated from halfway through the middle of the Third Age, describing the death of the last noble member of the Honeytail Clan, an aristocratic family of unicorns whose great ancestors several generations before were loyalists to the Lunar Empire, having been given pardon by Princess Celestia following the banishment of Nightmare Moon.
For several centuries, the Honeytail household had lived within the sacred protection of the Celestial Estate, barred off from the rest of the Equestrian population, many of whom were descendants of brave soldiers who died wastefully at the hooves of the Lunar Empire, and who wanted nothing more than to strike vengeance at the Honeytail Clan for so much bad blood built up over the years. The Honeytails were satisfied to stay within the confines of Princess Celestia's domain, and on account of their fear and hesitance, they died out as a hemophiliac strain of inbreds, fading into nothingness with little more than a passive epithet from their forgiving queen in a journal that only one lone pegasus would read after an apocalypse had long come and gone.
The pony's scarlet eyes wandered across the ever-familiar bulkheads of the Harmony, across the windows stained with repetitious cyclones of snow, like her countless days were repetitious, bouncing back and forth between scavenging jobs while dodging murderers and monsters and only randomly communing with a flying squirrel that leeched off her, a monkey that swindled her, and a griffon that drove an invisible knife into her heart and twisted it. Everything about her existence was like a flake of ash, lost in the twirling winds, disguising itself with the faux self-importance of a steam-powered zeppelin armed to the teeth with sacrilegious runestones.
She was the last pony, and if this was living, she wasn't doing a very good job of it. The mare briefly remembered what it meant to take chances before chances took her, what it meant to go for the gold before succumbing to a life that settled for silver, what it meant to fight gravity long before her wings ever paid heed to her audacity. She never asked for Princess Celestia's protection before the cataclysm, and she sure as blazes didn't ask for Gilda's after it.
The young mare clasped the Royal Book closed. Bolting out of the hammock, she slapped the record player off, yanked a scroll from her workbench, and practically leaped into the cockpit seat. Unfurling the map, she clasped a compass in her teeth and charted the distance between her present location, and the dead center of the Equestrian Wastelands, chiefly the coordinates: '105, 32, 10.'
As soon as she mentally prepared the bearings in her head, she snapped the map scroll closed, spat the compass out, and sneered into the stuffy air, “Nopony lives forever. Isn't that right, Princess?” She grasped her goggles, slid them over her eyes, and yanked hard on the levers—banking the Harmony portside and veering the craft swiftly southward.
It was several dozens of hours later when the Harmony finally touched down, and when it had finished mooring, the landscape beneath it couldn't have been a ghostlier sight. Here, in the deepest valley of Equestria, the snow flurries blew savagely across the landscape like an ivory sandstorm. Black stalks of petrified glass shot forth from the scorched earth in obsidian daggers, making it a tough feat in and of itself for the pegasus to land.
Still, she descended bravely, and with a final flap of her wings the pony set hoof down on holy ground. As soon as she landed, a deep shudder left her, as if she was giving up the ghost in her shell to rejoin this deathly graveyard. She stared with chattering teeth, her snout bravely piercing the howling winds. Try as she might to eye the northern horizon, nothing could be seen beyond five meters' distance. All she knew was that this was the last hilltop before the northern dip where Pitt's coordinates pointed her. Beyond the sloping terrain was foreboding obscurity, and it was about to brush bleeding elbows with the horrible shadows of her long forsaken memories.
With a strong gulp, the pony stood straight and tall, feeling the weight of her leather armor, saddlebags, rifle, runestone magazines, and two pairs of rune-capped jars. All of the defensive materials somehow didn't make the next few trots any easier. She had her yoke of lanterns with her, but couldn't persuade herself to light them, not yet. The mare knew that she wouldn't need them to find her way here.
As the mare slowly trudged down the hilltop from the tethered Harmony, the flurrying wind spread the snow before her, revealing a pair of dried up riverbeds converging before a series of multicolored houses, collapsed buildings with their thatched roofs long blown off. The skeletons of various oak trees lurched into view; and finally a deathly, slumbering village bled forth from the gray expanse.
One lone sign by a snow-laden path—bent at an odd angle—shuddered from the proximity of the pegasus' treading hooves. The powdery ash that had collected on its surface fell off, revealing the lonesome words:
“Welcome to Ponyville. Sanctum of Earth Ponies. Population: 1,056'”
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Wow....this chapter just blew me away emotionally...
At almost every line there was a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye, it was just so moving. It's been years since I've read a story that has moved me so much. Heh, maybe it's silly to be moved so much from fiction about ponies, but I'm very glad that I stumbled upon this story. It's an incredible tale of "the last pony" and the hardships she has endured and it's not even finished yet! Plus I haven't even gotten to what is probably going to be the even more emotionally moving part of this story. To go back in time and see the ponies that you know are just going to only end up as a pile of bones and ash...I can't even think of how that would feel. I really can't wait to read the next chapter as well as the ones that are to follow it, but alas, it's 2:40am here and bed is calling me.
Have a good one.
Around the time I got near the end, I found myself remembering a quote from the Watchmen movie. I believe it went: " Why should I save a world I no longer have a stake in?". From the readers point of view it may seem like a simple decision, but you have made it clear that Scoots has some reservations of going back. From what I've read, she realizes after him saying that time is immutable that the only thing she can do is watch events from her foalhood play into the worst moment in her life, all in the slim chance that she could find a way to help a present that she has no stake in.
You, my friend, have crafted a narrative that, within less than five chapters, has proven more thought-provoking and riveting than most popular literature today. With ponies.
To quote Rainbow Dash: "ohhh. You're good."
this is fantastic!
for some reason i really liked this:
"She then did something that she hadn't done since she was a little foal; she touched down with pegasus hooves onto the wispy surface of the overcast cloudbanks."
Keep writing!
MY FEELERS!!!!!!
MY FEELERS THEYRE JUST ALL OVER THE PLACE
ok seriously this is wierd, I leave a lenthy comment about spikes size in the previous chapter's comments and first thing in the next chapter which was written months before the comment was made is a reference to spikes size. its like every comment i leave here will be answered in the next chapter, lol.
Needed corrections: 1) "The bright green tongues billowed around the near-indiscernible eyelash as she swiftly closed the jar, twisted it shut, and raised the glowing thing up towards the center of Princess Celestia's mirror." 'he' instead of 'she'. 2) "Hope is a disease, an affliction to all living beings. The only thing sentient creatures such as ponies had ever accomplished was die, and yet we had always clung to hope." 'die' is supposed to be 'dead'. 3) "“Kind of armor pony needs is something no strips could buy, Brucie thinks." needs a '"' at the end.
This sentence confuses me, " Something akin to a foalish smile, and Scootaloo breathed: “I'm liking this idea.” ".
Over all i really liked this chapter. Touching down on the clouds was a nice touch, as was the journal entries, and the visit with Brucie. The addition of The Six Goddess Sisters is interesting but defiantly will call for some elaborate involvement later in the novel.
Also im getting the sense that this is the first time Spike has met Scootaloo throughout his time travels, be nice if that were clarified.
Over all another good read.
google.com.au/imgres?q=manly+tears+were+shed&hl=en&sa=X&rlz=1T4ADFA_enAU419AU424&biw=1366&bih=641&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=cVrFmWnMNNPo3M:&imgrefurl=http://ouja.wordpress.com/2010/07/08/manly-tears/&docid=hFXVmahUoVpZwM&imgurl=http://ouja.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/mot1.jpg&w=554&h=480&ei=3ij7TveAGMqhiAfDo4wu&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=624&vpy=142&dur=1726&hovh=209&hovw=241&tx=55&ty=115&sig=112705599107312842087&page=1&tbnh=139&tbnw=159&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0
75467
Die is not supposed to be dead.
This is just so good, NightCore summed it up almost exactly how i feel about this last chapter. Watery eyes a lump in my thought. I loved the part when she told him her name, she's been keeping so much (ironically) "Bottled" up that she finally lets someone into her life a little, and then the final cathartic release of emotion on the top of the clouds, screaming into nothing. Its stories like this that make me wonder why the hell people read the Twilight books. I hope the story finishes by the time I get to the end. To let a great story like this come to a cliffhanger would be terrible, its the one trepidation i have about continuing to read. But like I said before that Nightcore and I share the same feelings, Its 3:14am for me so I'm off. Cant wait to continue reading tomorrow
Oh damn. Just got the significance of Dash saying that Harmony had told them that the Cataclysm was coming back in the beginning. Scootaloo names her airship after the pony who gave the news that saved her, is constantly called the name of that airship, then goes back in time and ends up saving herself.
Hmm... I love it, but describing the Celestia's and Luna's origins... That is the only thing I dislike so far. But I love the story!
i never guessed when i first heard there was tons of mlp fan fics that they would ever go this detailed, thought provoking and philosophical as both this fan fic and your more recent one: background pony.
The one rule of time that most authors and storytellers try to change, that they try to make work for them, be it Back to the Future, or Doctor Who, that can never be realistically be broken like they try to in their stories and yet you make perfectly clear you will not in this one: That time and the events within it can never be changed. This has changed how the story will be and thus puts more emotional stake into it. it makes the story something more. To know you can never change the horrors around you, that all those you love can never come back from the dead, that you cannot change your past- this is a hard thing to accept for many and yet is the irrefutable truth of the universe. Yet instead of escaping it, you have embraced it and made it something to work around with. This is not a story of changing ones past, but witnessing it to perhaps learn and create a better present and future.
It has already been an emotional roller coaster with all that I have read of Scootaloos sorrow and the fates of all the Equestrian characters that i so love, Yet this story is just beginning, with many more such roller-coaster coming to be soon. I think now, that all the things she will see in the past, all the friends she had known back then- to watch them in the mere days before the cataclysm happened, living out their lives, knowing there is nothing you can do to save them from times grip- I think that has put more emotion, more heart, more something into the story, than any i have ever read before. Well done, dear author- you have not only crafted a though provoking, dark tale of hope- you have created something more, something that perhaps, like Scootaloos clinging notion of hope, like the legacy left behind by the Equestrians- will transcend time itself.
The Drifter of Space and Time
Damnit. About halfway through, I shat brix. Scootaloo is Harmony, the pony RD was talking about before the cataclysm; it was her time-traveled self. Anyone else realize during a first readthrough?
Awesome chapter... Now tying in history to the story. I likey.
I already pieced this story togther...
TIME PARADOX
760977
Da.
760977
I realised it partway through chapter 1 actually, with the ship being named Harmony and the description of the story saying that Scootaloo would have a chance to go back to the past. Since "Harmony" knew about the event, and seemingly nopony else did, I figured it had to be Scootaloo, since she actually lived through it and therefore knew about it.
Besides that from what I have read so far this is fantastic! Slowly becoming one of my favourite fanfics.
chiiiiiilllllssss
I love this Spike. I love the Six Sisters. I love that you took the time for Scootaloo to sensibly(/insanely) change her mind. I loved the scene with Bruce and that he smashed the cigar when she told him her name. I love this story and all the misty eyes and tingly spines that come with it.
But I'm gonna take a break from it, because if I keep obsessing over your work at this pace, Skirts, I'm never going to create anything of my own. Your imagination dwarfs mine, so to lessen the viscosity of what little creative juices I have, I'm going to scamper away from the heart of your shadow. Maybe I'll just hang out in your penumbra for a while.
Oh, Penumbra...
Thanks again, Skirts. This is truly astounding.
Where do I begin. This chapter hurt. Like a subtle realization, when Spike said that nothing could be changed. To know that the end result, the Cataclysm, must occur. And that all our beloved characters will meet their fates, regardless of how this story progresses. Perhaps I'm a little too attached to fictional characters, but I can't help but think back to the very beginning, when Rainbow said she was going to find Harmony. In my gut I realize, I already know the conclusion of the story. At that moment, I wanted to jump in and protest, that it couldn't end that way. There had to be a way to save them. But then this story wouldn't be what it is. A mature plot, that doesn't give in to the happy ending, and depicts the harsh reality. That the end state is to make the most of the present, not try to amend the past. In my mind, this is the definition of bitter sweet. I already have a strong feeling that Scootaloo will die with the rest of her friends in the past. Yet, I still hold out for some twist that there can be a change, much like Scoots disillusioned hope that her beacon would find another survivor. Regardless, I will continue to read this story. To say that it is engrossing is an understatement. I will comment more as I read, and I hope you find the inspiration to conclude this story.
518342 Dang it, I was going to say that...
moment, right in the middle of this chapter, when I realized this. I also think that Scoots had something to do with causing the Cataclysm, but I'm not sure.
I had a
Beautiful. Can't do it justice with a comment...
damn good writing.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
1052737
Call this an extremely late reply (try several months), but I found it interesting how I feel the same way as you. That same attachment to fictional characters makes me click the next chapter, my mind wishing for a good ending; my heart aching for it to all just be a dream...
...but then it'd be just another "character wakes up to learn that it was all just a dream," cliche plot, and wouldn't be anywhere as good as it is now. Perhaps the most horrifying part of this story (so far) is the fact that both Luna and Celestia have died, (most likely; the stellar bodies they're tied to don't just explode for fun) When even two goddesses are able to be physically killed while certain other lesser races survive, you know something bad happened. Truly, the idea of the deathless facing death is an issue that rattles my very core. (It also makes me wonder if that means they were never really "goddesses" in the first place, but rather extremely powerful beings. Bah, who knows: maybe they're still alive as spirits seeking the chance to return to a physical state-- I still have 48+ chapters to go before I learn why the Cataclysm happened, who caused it, why Scootaloo was the only survivor, and why Equestria had to go. Guess this takes the idea of "All good things have to come to an end," to a whole new level...)
Truly, that mature plot is what makes this story so amazing-- I'd never have the guts to create such a beautiful yet harsh plot while SSAE does. That's what makes SSAE's stories so amazing-- there's no fear of doing the unthinkable and creating a story just because it's too horrifying for any of us readers to comprehend. Honestly, that's why I believe this eclipses I Am Legend (and that was a depressing book) because it takes place in 1) a world where such events should NEVER happen, and 2) showing a world going from a beautiful and prosperous society to a dark and barren wasteland due to a cataclysmic event.
I read this one:
Im gonna stop reading the comments now because something's wrong and it's showing comments for the next chapter instead of the current one.
Flying blind. So hardcore.
when I read that sign at the end chills
So it was Ponyville after all. What's more, Ponyville is the dead center of the wastelands. This means either one of two things. The first is that the wasteland covers all Equestrian territory and Ponyville just happens to be in the middle of this territory. This makes a certain amount of sense as the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters exists in the Everfree forest which is just a stone's throw away from Ponyville. What better place to rule a country from then it's middle? However, the second option seems more likely. With this option whatever happened to bring about the cataclysm happened first in Ponyville. So what happened? One of Twilight's experiments gone very, very wrong? I wouldn't put it past Twilight, but that kind of thing doesn't seem to fit the mood of the story. I guess I'll have to keep reading.
4677211 Not quite. It's now 1.
T
The ghosts of Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom are waiting. That must have taken extraordinary courage.
Yep.
I wonder if Gilda knows who Scootaloo really is. Possibly not, since they never interacted on-screen, but it would be a neat moment later on if that comes to pass.
It's interesting to consider just how other ponies would have actually fared in the Wasteland. It's entirely possible Scootaloo was one of a rare breed who could. Very few ponies would probably have found the spirit to continue on living, not when absolutely everypony they knew was wiped out. I'm sure a few had non-equine friends, but not that many in general. A unicorn might have had a defter hoof than a pegasus because of being able to use more magic, but possibly not. Scootaloo managed to dig her way out of the ashes at least. Then there's all the work she must have undoubtedly put in throughout the years, learning mechanics and welding to build her ship, gunsmith for her guns, and rune magic for multiple disciplines, but above all for surviving.
Rainbow Dash I don't think could survive the Wasteland. All her friends are dead, all of equinity is dead, it's really all grimdark and no hope I know you have your Austraeoh series, but at least that doesn't have everypony die.
Well, it's interesting to see just how much Scootaloo is rattled by merely being reminded of Ponyville's existence. Starting a bar fight in a room full of hostiles who are just itching to get at her is definitely not a smart idea even if she feels the need to impress her strength upon others, so for what could very well be the first time she actually did get saved by Gilda showing up. But I have to wonder if there's some additional trauma inflicted by Ponyville's destruction that the story hasn't so much hinted at yet that makes her hesitant to visit. I mean, certainly, it's where Scootaloo spent most of her time growing up, and it's where most of her friends have probably died as well. Very possible she might be terrified of stumbling upon Apple Bloom's or Sweetie Belle's skeletons and recognising them. Or is that just it, that she doesn't want to return to Ponyville because of bad memories, with no real deeper meaning or hidden pasts behind it?
But at least it's not where Rainbow Dash died, is it?
In any event, considering how much green flame is being talked up, if Scootaloo can get some of that green flame it sounds like she would be in a much better position in the Wasteland. So no wonder going wins out.
Ponyville and Green Flame... Hmm... Spike's Flame? Oh, that makes sense why it's valuable. You can send something with that. Where though? since Celestia kicked the bucket.
Why the heck would you leave the ship instead of flying it into town?!