I'm a long time science fiction and animation fan who stumbled into My Little Pony fandom and got caught -- I guess I'm a Brony Forever now.
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This story is a sequel to An Extended Performance
Piercing Gaze, the Baltimare impresario and owner of the Hippodrome Theatre, expected to do record business during the Summer Sun Celebration, when he could draw in crowds until the dawn. He did not expect the night to last well into the morning. At least all this trouble was taking his mind off his memories of a certain little blue magician ...
Side-story to An Extended Performance.
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3930464
Well ... I'm not going to give away my climax, but you do know this story takes place at the exact same time as An Extended Performance, so the Great and Powerful lady in question is hundreds of miles away, and will be having a few problems of her own ...
*Aren't those the same thing?
Sure, Piercing. It'll work this time. Whatever you say.
*double period
*And
Why do I get the feeling that something very bad is about to happen to Piercing's beloved Hippodrome?
*extraneous period
Oh look, all those armed forces chaps just got called out on business. I wonder if that could mean anything.
Nah. It's probably nothing.
4015708
Technically, assuming that the day changes at midnight, it's "early morning" after midnight. Though, keeping with my Fantasy Counterpart Culture analogy, the Onagers would actually end each day at sundown and start a new day then. On the other hoof, Piercing is a very assimilated half-Onager, so he probably tells time in the normal Equestrian manner. Which may or may not work like ours -- I've never decided that. The show's Translation Conventions assumes that it does.
Piercing is Carrying the Torch. It wasn't the sex, understand -- he's a very experienced stallion, and they were both drunk. It's that he'd connected with her, emotionally and intellectually, on a very deep level. He really does see her as his "soul mate," and he's mad at himself that he ruined it by being so forward. Which is how he sees what happened -- and the fact that he's tougher on himself than Trixie herself is on him is a sign that he really loves her.
4015752
Well, I won't be giving too much away by saying it'll definitely be endangered.
4015780
Yes, this is the same mobilization that Celestia orders in An Extended Performance. Baltimare is the biggest port in southeastern Equestria, with an incredibly good (and suspiciously perfectly-circular) natural harbor, and it's the base for almost half Equestria's Stormy Sea Fleet. Celestia doesn't want to risk having the fleet destroyed at anchor.
4016410
Sorry. I was trying to be clever, and I think I failed to properly convey the problem I had. I wasn't confused about the time designated as "nighttime" - when the sun is down, the moon is up and all that. I was just pointing out you said it was from "sunset to sundown."
Sunset is when the sun sets. So is sundown.
I think what you meant to say was "sunset to sunrise." That would make sense to me, but if not, then I must be completely off track somehow. Sorry about the confusion.
4016585
D'oh!!!
I was such an idiot that I missed your point! "Sundown to sunrise!!!" is what I meant.
I totally apologize for my stupidity!
4016585
Heh ... that would have been a very SHORT party. Fixed it.
Wow! This is really good. It's a shame OC stories don't get the attention they deserve, it irritates me sometimes.
Question, do you speak any other languages?
Because you have a very unique way of describing things. 
Very cool story, looking forward to the next update. It's funny, but when I was reading I kinda of imagined Piercing to be Humphrey Bogart if he was a pony. I don't know, I guess I watch too many movies.
Maybe, it's because like Humphrey Bogart, Piercings got class.
I might have to check out some of your other stuff.
4042203
I'm glad you like the OC aspects of the story. It's largely an OC story; it's obviously connected with Trixie in that she's had an influence over Piercing Gaze, but it's mostly about Piercing and his friends running the Hippodrome and how they deal with the Longest Night. I'm trying to make them an interesting bunch of ponies with distinct and strong personalities, none of whom are all that similar to any of the Mane Six.
Yeah -- I love the Mane Six and their adventures, but Equestria's a whole world (a cool science-fantasy Golden Age pulp kind of world at that) and it's full of interesting ponies doing interesting things that are only marginally-related to anything the Mane Six do. And there's so much stuff done about the Mane Six that it's hard to be original and yet reasonably consistent with canon with them.
This story is something which couldn't be about the Mane Six -- none of them are much like Piercing (the closest to him would be Rarity, who's also a generous pony very much into business, the community and public relations), and she's in a different line of work. This is also specifically a story about a middle-aged stallion who has a way of life centered around the performing arts. And while Piercing does have a useful magical talent and is a reasonably brave and tough guy, it's not as powerful as any of those of the Mane Six nor is he a fighter on anything near their level -- he's a theatrical promoter, not one of Celestia's Champions. He's all about running his theater, not going out looking for trouble.
Eh, I speak a little French and am familiar with bits and pieces of several other European tongues, specifically Spanish, Italian, German and Latin, but French is the only non-English language I'm even moderately conversational in, and I'm rusty. Piercing and his friends are descended from Onagers from Germaney and Lippanzer, which is the Fantasy Counterpart Culture here of being German and Austrian Jewish. So if I've given them an exotic flavor, they're a bit like relatively-assimilated East Coast American Jews from a hundred years ago. In the case of Piercing and Goldie, you'd have to look very carefully to realize that they were Onagers at all; they are both part-Pony and look more Pony than Onager.
I'm assuming, incidentally, that Onagers and Ponies are more interfertile than real Asian asses and horses. Piercing is a mule in the biological sense (though not in appearance) because he lost a throw of the genetic dice. Goldie would probably be more interfertile with a pure-blood Pony than with a pure-blood Onager, and you may notice that both of them have Pony English-style names (real Germane/Lippanzer Onager names I would translate as pseudo-Yiddish style German ones). Red Ink's real name, Russe Tinter, is an example of this.
This is of course all a Translation Convention. I'm assuming that the actual languages they are speaking are mostly unpronounceable by human vocal organs, and the phonemes they are using sufficiently alien that we would have to listen to them full-immersion for days and weeks to be able to learn enough to even begin learning their languages (I'm guessing that's how Lemuel Gulliver did it, though Megan had the assistance of a magic gate that also acted as a translation spell).
I'm glad you see him as a Bogart kind of character -- that was my intent though I didn't have Bogart specifically in mind when I conceived him. I was thinking in terms of the kind of tough self-reliant fellow who might have grown up in a cultural equivalent of the 19th century turning into the 20th century, not exactly a proper gentlecolt because he came from a rougher sort of background and learned a lot about how to deal with the world on the road, but nevertheless a naturally-honorable being. He's worked his way up to a position of wealth and prominence, and very much believes in the possibilities of success through hard work, perseverance, and the assiduous cultivation of one's own natural talent.
Piercing is a bit promiscuous, but he's not obsessed by sex, and he's normally ethical about it: he goes out of his way to avoid harming mares. This is why he doesn't take advantage of Goldie's crush on him, because he knows that she would be hurt if he didn't truly love her; he also knows that she would want foals down the line and he doesn't think he can give her that (whether or not he could would be up to the precise nature of the chromosome irregularity that renders him infertile, but that's medicine at a level beyond Piercing's grasp and a bit beyond Equestria's in general at this point in their technological development); plus she's working for him and he doesn't want to destroy their very friendly working relationship.
(note though that Equestria's not as litigatious as is early-21st century America and she couldn't successfully sue him for this unless he explicitly made it a matter of "sleep with me or lose your job," and even then it would be difficult for her to prove -- not that Piercing would ever do something that crude to a mare)..
He doesn't take advantage of Scarlet Sheaf's really blatant attempt to seduce him because he's very serious about running his business, and it would disrupt things if he were to start taking mistresses from among his show-mares; also, he rather quickly comes to see her as more filly than mare, and feels a bit protective toward her (even though she obviously has some sexual experience). He's quite sincere in the little speech he gives Scarlet, and he hopes that she believes him. His Gaze only commands attention; it's nowhere nearly as strong as, to take the obvious example, Fluttershy's Stare. He can't control other pony's minds.
Trixie was a huge exception to his normal rules, and he never consciously meant to seduce her. (In fact the seduction was mutual -- and unintentional -- as is obvious if you've read An Extended Performance). The fact that she responded by first yielding to and then fleeing him does not exactly fill him with confidence in the wisdom of such actions. He has a very high opinion of Trixie's intelligence, innate talents and skills, and had meant to groom her for bigger things: he believes that with practice she could have taken her act national and he wanted to be her partner in this, both because he could have made a lot of money from such an arrangement and because he really liked (and loved) her.
He hopes to be reconciled with her at some future point: the problem is that he has responsibilities in Baltimare and Trixie moves around a lot; even if he swallowed his pride to seek her out, it would not exactly be easy to find her. Plus he figures she hates his guts, and stalking a mare who hates one's guts is not exactly a good approach.
On Trixie's end of things, she regrets fleeing the city, but her own (even bigger) pride prevents her from contacting him. She knows she's not really all that successful, and she hopes to make it big and then renew her friendship with him, so she's not coming to him as a supplicant.
Trixie's not a very sexual sort of Pony, but she is very lonely for real friends. (Also, whle not very sexual, she is tremendously romantic -- her whole stage persona is essentially about re-imagining herself as a Mary Sue). Her ego is way too big for her to fully admit to herself how much she misses Piercing.
The irony of Trixie's situation is that what she does at the same time as this story, in Manehattan, is enormously heroic. For real. She just won't remember it very clearly.
Anyway, I'm glad you liked my story!
4042675 Someone here does his homework. Looking forward to the next chapters!
Interesting story so far I can't wait for more.
As a sterile Pony/Onager-Hybrid, he can have sex with all of the equine mares he wants and not worry about foal-support, if the mares find him sexy, which is the bottleneck of the plan.
The age of consent brings up an interesting point:
We need to draw a line, but have no idea where to draw the line. I certainly do not know where to draw the line. In the news, I see stories about 2 minors the same age both being charged with statutory-rape. This seems stupid to me. ¿What to do?:
¡Mathematics!
It seems to me that if the age difference between the 2 is less than the square-root of the age of the younger individual, it is just foals playing doctor, but if the age difference between then is greater than square-root of the age of the younger foal, the older foal takes advantage of the younger foal. I shall give examples:
The younger foal is 9. The square-root of 9 is 3. If the older foal is less than 12, it is just 2 foals playing doctor.
This also works for the case of 1 individual being over age of consent; while, the other is under the age of consent:
Like in Harry Potter, the age of consent is 17. We have a filly and colt who are 16. the filly becomes a mare of 17. ¿Should she go to prison? ¡No! the square-root of 16 is 4, so since she is under 20, she is fine.
¡Mathematics solve so many problems!
Ded