Journey Home

by Bulbasaur

Part VIII

The storm had rejuvenated the local landscape, and now all manners of wildlife dotted the scenery. Squirrels had come out of their burrows, dragonflies zipped through the air, and some adventurous seagulls had even wandered far from their usual domain of the oceans.

Trails and Sunshine were on the train platform, seeing Dash and Twilight off. Not many ponies would be on this train, bound for the Southern towns of Equestria through some difficult mountain passes (Twilight had insisted they take a different route home), so it was fairly quiet around them.

“Dash, could we talk to you in private for a moment?” asked Trails.

“Sure,” said Dash. “Make it quick, though. The train’s gonna leave in ten minutes.”

Dash and her parents made their way behind the platform. Sunshine checked to see that there were no ponies nearby.

“So, what’s up?” Dash eventually asked.

Trails remained silent for a while before saying, “It’s hard to believe it’s been seven years since I’ve seen you, filly.” He paused. “You’ve grown a lot. Got any plans for the future?”

Dash shrugged. “Wonderbolts, if I can. I’m already local weather manager, so I can’t really climb too much higher up without switching fields.”

Trails nodded. “Alright, seems like you’re pretty set.” He hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry for the outburst last night. I —”

“No,” Dash interrupted. “I’m sorry. I blew things out of proportion.”

“Dash, listen,” said Sunshine.

Trails continued. “We think that if it makes you happy… well… you’re welcome to pursue a relationship with Twilight.”

Dash’s face slowly morphed into a smile. “Really?”

“Yeah. She loves you, and you evidently love her, and, well… who are we to get in the way of that? Just make sure to treat her right, okay?”

Dash nodded and was about to say something, but no words came out.

“Have faith. Have courage. And more importantly… have fun.” Trails embraced her daughter tightly. “Go now, your marefriend’s probably worried about you.”

Rainbow dashed off in a flash. Her forward momentum carried her into Twilight’s body.

“Featherbrain!” Twilight said with a yelp. “What was that for?”

“Great news! My parents give us their tentative approval!”

It took Twilight a second to process what Dash meant. “That’s fantastic, Featherbrain!” she said, hugging Dash with all her strength.

After Twilight let go of the pegasus, she smiled at Dash’s parents. “Thanks so much, Trails, Sunshine! I promise I won’t let her down!”

“We know you won’t,” said Sunshine.

“Final call!” cried the conductor. "Final call!"

“See ya!” said Dash, turning back to see her parents one more time.

“It was nice meeting you,” said Twilight.

“Make sure to visit often, y’hear?” said Sunshine.

“We will, promise!”

With that, the two boarded the train, taking them on their journey home.

Author's Note:

Credit where credit's due: though the pet names "Egghead" and "Featherbrain" are drawn from my girlfriend and my interactions, we borrowed them from TheLastBrunnenG

Comments

[Tarlek]

7th like, I'm lucky! Why do I have an obsession with 7 other than my birthday is quite literally 1/7th

[Minds Eye]

Overall, I enjoyed this story.

I think the criticism that Rainbow's relatives gave her came a little too quickly. It didn't have much weight behind it, and I'm not sure why Rainbow reacted so strongly to it. I'm hardly a master of Asian culture, so there might be a good reason for it and I'm just missing something.

The extended section in italics in Part VII was a little confusing. They're supposed to be Twilight's thoughts, right? Twilight wasn't even in some of them. Twilight wasn't even there for some of them, like the bit with Rainbow's house in Cloudsdale.

This was still a fun read. I liked the prank Rainbow pulled on Twilight, making her ask for directions like that. Good luck in the contest!

[PresentPerfect]

God, Rainbow's parents are assholes. No wonder she hasn't seen them for seven years. That's pretty much all I got out of this. :/

[Bulbasaur]

4705287 Thanks for the comment, and good luck to you too!

No, part VII was also supposed to be Dash's thoughts.

[DesiArcy]

4705287 The reason Rainbow reacted so strongly is that you don't compliment people on how well they speak their own native language -- they're treating her like a foreigner.

[elPossenreisser]

Some random thoughts - right after I express that I liked the story

I liked the world building, and wouldn't have minded more of that

Dash's parents complaining about how she could do better was a bit odd. I can totally see that exact dialog work if Dash was male (because we all know that the most important thing a dear son needs in a girlfriend is good looks, duh - whereas for a daughter it may be desirable that her partner is clever, rich, or successful, which in this case would apply to Twilight). But in this case the "you could do better... than a princess" kinda missed the mark for me. I think focussing on "but she's a girl!!111eleven!" could have worked better here.

I rather liked the italicized section and didn't mind that it was a tad confusing (confusing thoughts are confusing after all), but I think it would have benefitted from some sort of scene separation - some of these thoughts are one-liners, and for those the single linebreaks work fine; but some are multi-paragraph scenes, so every new line made me wonder "am I still in the same scene?" It wasn't hard to follow in the end, but better formatting might be good [/anal retentive rant]

Good luck in the contest

[Bulbasaur]

4733729

Hey there, 'Reisser (I can call you that, right?)

First off, thank you for your review of my contest story.

In response to your first thoughts: in fact, the story was drawn from two separate real-life things. One, of course, was the trip to China, but the second was my dad's criticism of my girlfriend. So if you could see the conversation happening if Dash were male, then there's the reason for that Of course, I sort of sensed that it wouldn't hold up entirely on its own, so I made that as an ancillary cover-up to the "but but but lesbians" argument. Unfortunately, that evidently didn't quite work.

As for your last thought, the italicized section wasn't actually supposed to be confusing. Scene breaks were indicated like...

... this. This was an attempt to make it kinematic and less stop-py, but I guess it sort of turned belly-up into the morass it currently is. I suppose I shouldn't ask you for advice on how to change it so that it's still kinematic but less confusingly so until the contest is over, so when it is, could you point me in the right direction?

Thanks so much for your gentle review. I could learn a lot from you in terms of your reviewing style. I'll get around to reading your work soon.

Kindest regards, and the best of luck

--Bulbasaur

[elPossenreisser]

4733800
'Reisser is definitely new - but sure, why not (I've also been called Possen, Possie, elpossie and I think some other things around here )

In response to your first thoughts: in fact, the story was drawn from two separate real-life things. One, of course, was the trip to China, but the second was my dad's criticism of my girlfriend. So if you could see the conversation happening if Dash were male, then there's the reason for that

I had a slight suspicion that that particular scene was one of the "real" bits of the story I can see how that poses certain conflicts of "staying true to the real incident" vs. "da story".

As for your last thought, the italicized section wasn't actually supposed to be confusing. Scene breaks were indicated like...

... this.

Heh, seems I confused myself with the flashback part. What I thought to be one-liners was in fact Zecora speaking, and I just failed to catch up on the "..:" quickly enough. So um, it may be reader's ignorance

I do think though that just an additional blank line between scenes would make it more obvious, like this:

Twilight sat across from her mentor, sipping a steaming cup of jasmine tea in one of the Castle's many gardens. One pony observed the other with a smile; the other gazed above her cup of tea, eyes wide with admiration.

“Princess,” Twilight asked. “Where did you grow up?”

“When I was young, I grew up alongside Cadence, in the Crystal Empire; I ruled that land for quite some time. But that is no longer my home, my little pony. Home, now… home for me is…”

… “The fair land of Equestria, miss” said Zecora. “I’m grateful for your apology, and hope in time you’ll get to know me. Zebri’s the land of my parents, yes, but I was born in Canterlot, I confess.”

“That’s cool,” said Rainbow Dash. “I know what you’re going through, and I know it sucks.”

“Went through, I say, but now that you’re here, I’ll hold onto Ponyville dear.”

“Great!” said Dash. “So on behalf of everyone in town…”

Doesn't break the smooth transition too badly (IMHO), yet still makes it obvious "dude, new scene here"

[Star_Blossom]

Rainbow from Asia?

headcanon accepted