Flitter
Bonus Three
Scraps
SCRAP: ROYALS AND OUTLAWS (working title of chapter 5)
[Scene: "The Scholar and the Beast", after Flitter asked Twilight Sparkle to inform the Princess about him. Note that in this early version, Spike fled to the kitchen. This was changed because I didn't think he'd be able to send a letter from there without being noticed... or would even find a quill and parchment there.]
Twilight shook her head. "It's not about the trial, is it? It's about the newspapers."
Flitter nodded. "I figured a changeling going through Equestrian legal channels should get some media attention, yes."
Twilight looked at the changeling and his wife, and nodded. "Very well. I'll help you." She looked at the kitchen. "Spike!"
"I'm not coming out!" Spike yelled back."You can't make me!"
Twilight Sparkle smirked, and her horn lit up. "Yes I can," she said, as she dragged him into the living room in a glow of purple magic. "Now say hello to Flitter and Morning Rain."
The baby dragon, still hanging in the purple glow, looked at the two guests and tilted his head.
"So, um... which is which?"
DELETED SCENE: EQUESTRIAN COURT
[Set right after the previous piece. In this version, Spike didn't send his own message to the Princess, and Flitter's original plan continued. Once again thanks to Ember/Tango for saving us from this, because it mostly looks like a retelling of chapter 1 and 2, which would probably have continued with a retelling of chapter 3 and 4, and I honestly had no idea where I was going with it.]
"State your name for the Court."
"Flitter."
"That is not the name you used when you lived and worked here in Canterlot, though, is it?"
"No, it isn't."
"What was that name?"
"Swift Star."
"Tell the court, please, how you came to use that name."
It had been two weeks since they'd visited Twilight Sparkle, and a lot had happened. He'd been formally arrested and put in a rather comfortable jail cell, where he got frequent visits from both his family and the press.
By now, all of Equestria had heard of the case. Flitter was just glad to get it all over with, so he was more than happy that his trial had finally started. The identity of the judge had been quite a surprise, though, and the reason the court room was bathed in revered silence, despite the crowd the case had attracted.
He looked at Princess Celestia, and nodded. "Certainly, your highness. Twenty years ago, I came across a pony who had fallen into a ravine. He had severe internal injuries. I tried to help him by getting him back to society, but he didn't make it. We made a deal, which allowed me to use his identity."
Celestia gave him an inquisitive look. "What was that deal?"
"I was allowed to use his identity and form, and in exchange, I would care for Morning Rain and her child, for as long as they needed it."
"Are such deals normal, amongst your people?"
Flitter nodded. "Yes, and no. The deal is usually to stay until the love fades, and the relationship breaks. The reasoning is that a breakup is a lot easier to deal with than the death of a loved one at the prime of a relationship. Swift Star forced in a quite unexpected element."
"So, it is usual to seek out dying ponies, then?"
"It is in our nature. We feed on love. Some may indeed let them die for their own purpose, but we have learned that gratitude may be just as nourishing. Many careless travellers have been saved by my people, with as only deal that they don't tell anyone about us."
Celestia nodded. "The formal charge you requested to be set against you was 'collaboration in the changeling invasion of Canterlot'. Were you involved in that?"
"Involved? Well, everypony in Canterlot was involved. But I have no affiliation whatsoever with that hive, or their Queen. I don't even know who they were."
"Tell me, then. Where do you come from?"
"I was born in Equestria, your highness. I hail from the Everfree Forest."
A murmur rose from the crowd. They didn't seem to like the idea that there was a changeling nest right in the heart of Equestria.
Celestia smiled. "It has been a thousand years since I claimed any real ownership of that place. It doesn't surprise me in the least that someone else claimed it. So, who is your Queen?"
Flitter blinked. "Uh... you are."
Celestia raised an eyebrow. "I never claimed that title, out of respect for my sister. But, are you saying you accept my authority above that of your Hive?"
"I've lived amongst ponies far longer than I've been with my own kind. I consider myself quite naturalized."
"How old are you, exactly?"
In the front row of the audience, a certain minty green mare's eye suddenly twitched.
"Twenty-five years old, your highness. Twenty of these were spent amongst ponies, first in the village of Hayseed, and later here."
"So, on the matter of that charge. You, still disguised as Swift Star, were questioned by the Royal Guard that morning, after you were spotted too close to the shield. What were you doing, there?"
Flitter sighed. "That was Morning Rain's idea. I never wanted to get anywhere close to that thing."
"How do we know she was not under your mind control spell? We've seen what the invading changeling queen did to Shining Armor."
Flitter raised an eyebrow. "I've never managed to do any full mind control spells. Honestly, I kinda suck at magic. I know a spell to influence ponies' decisions, but after nearly twenty years of marriage she's quite immune to that. None of the changeling spells I heard of were ever meant to be used in a long lasting relationship."
"Very well," Celestia addressed the crowd. "I will now call in the first requested witness, and let Donut Joe describe his version of the events. The Court has made sure no witnesses are in any way influenced by any spells."
The yellow stallion got up from his seat, and nervously walked to the front of the court room. "Um. Hi. Your highness."
Celestia gave him a kind smile. "State your name for the Court."
"I'm Donut Joe."
"You saw Swift Star that day, didn't you? What impression did he give?"
"A bit stressed, I guess, but that's not so unusual for him. He seemed a bit annoyed at the missus for the whole shield thing, though."
"And, when the changelings attacked?"
"He panicked before any of us really realized what was going on. One look at those changelings and he rushed out, screaming about having to get out, even before the shield broke. He dragged the missus with him when he did."
"So, he certainly didn't seem like he was expecting it?"
"Oh, absolutely not."
SCRAP: READING ROYAL
[Scene: "The Scholar and the Beast", final version with the princess present, just after Spike's apology and Flitter remarking that getting him arrested had been the original plan anyway. This was scrapped because it seemed more natural to only make Celestia decide to read the notes after realizing there was a need to get up to speed quickly.]
"But... why?" Spike asked.
Morning Rain snorted. "Look on the bright side," she said to Flitter. "He saved you the sixth repeat."
"He could just read the notes!" Flitter said, pointing at the spot where Twilight had left them.
He blinked, and stopped pointing at the empty table. "Uh... where are the..."
"Shh," Celestia said, giving him a slightly amused smile. Twilight's notebook was floating in front of her, in a glow of yellow magic. "I'm reading."
DELETED SCENE: ROYAL NEGOTIATIONS
[Scene: "The Princess and the Queen", after Morphosai emerged from the forest. The original scene of the negotiations between Celestia and Morphosai had Morning Rain and Flitter present in the tent, and the Elements weren't all at the Everfree. I changed this for comedic impact of the revelation, and to integrate the Mane Six more naturally in the scene before it. I tried putting the Mane Six in this scene at one point, but in the end I just scrapped it altogether. Side note: the working title of Chapter 6 was "Wild, Untamed, and Dangerous."]
"We have much to discuss," Morphosai said to Celestia. She looked around to the army of Royal Guards. "But I would prefer somewhere more... private."
Celestia nodded. "Very well," she said. She pointed a wing at a nearby tent set up by the Royal Guard. "Will that do?"
Morphosai nodded. "Yes. I have one condition, though."
"So do I," Celestia said. "Let's hear it."
"I want Flitter and Morning Rain to be present."
Celestia smiled. "It seems my request will be no problem, then. I wanted to ask the same thing." She looked at Morning Rain and Flitter. "Come along, then."
The two nodded, and followed the two royals into the tent.
"I've been reading up on Twilight Sparkle's notes," Celestia said, once all four were inside the tent. "They were fascinating. I never imagined such a coexistence, let alone the fact it already existed."
She sat down on one of the pillows on the floor, and motioned to the others to do the same. "Well, it's hardly an honest coexistence, but given your nature, it's certainly progressive."
"And now, even that is threatened," Morphosai said.
"Let's not rush into things," Celestia said, smiling softly. "We haven't been properly introduced. I am Princess Celestia, co-ruler of Equestria."
The changeling Queen frowned. "Co-ruler? Why, then, are you a Princess, and not a Queen?"
"I've never taken the title, out of respect for my sister, and she has done the same."
Morphosai nodded. "I see. I am Morphosai, Queen and Mother of the changeling hive residing in the Everfree Forest. I believe this is technically part of your kingdom?"
Celestia raised an eyebrow at that. "It has been nearly a thousand years since I claimed ownership of the place. To be honest, I'm not surprised someone else claimed it."
"I never claimed the Everfree Forest, Princess," Morphosai said. "Even to us... even to me..." She glanced at Morning Rain. "...it is wild, untamed, and dangerous." She gave Celestia a sly grin. "It is technically part of Equestria though, is it not?"
The Princess frowned. "I suppose it is, yes. What's your point?"
"That would make my people one of two things. Illegal settlers... or Equestrian citizens."
Celestia's eyes widened. "You want to be considered citizens of Equestria?"
"I want what is best for my Hive," Morphosai said. "Which is probably not to be seen as illegal settlers."
"You could just be seen as wild, untamed, and dangerous," Celestia suggested.
"As beasts? Wild animals?" Morphosai narrowed her eyes. "Monsters?"
Celestia shook her head. "You do realize that becoming part of Equestria would mean a full unconditional surrender to the kingdom's standing laws, right?"
Morphosai smirked. "That seems far preferable to the status of 'monster'."
Celestia looked at Morning Rain and Flitter. "What do you think about this?" she asked.
Morning Rain shrugged with her wings. "That Iron Will minotaur guy that's been touring around lately, doesn't he have the Equestrian nationality?"
Flitter nodded. "I believe so. And anything that ensures I can move back to Canterlot is okay for me."
Celestia rubbed her forehead with a hoof. "That's just one person!" she said. "There would be loads of problems to work out. We can't just tell the ponies that you are part of the kingdom. Especially not after the invasion at the wedding. And then there's the food problem to sort out. I can hardly order my little ponies to like your kind!"
Morphosai gave her a wide grin. "I am always at your disposal to assist you with the task of sorting that out," she said. "As local regent, it is the least I can do."
"You are seriously giving me control over your hive," Celestia said flatly.
"Yes," Morphosai replied.
"What if I refuse?"
"You would still have to explain to your citizens why there is a changeling hive in the middle of your territory," Morphosai said. "There are plenty of witnesses to the fact; you made sure of that. I doubt their loyalty to you is so absolute that you could order every one of them to never speak a word of it." Morphosai looked at Celestia, as if asking for confirmation on her assumption. The pony princess sighed, and gave a short nod.
"Our races will still meet, and there will still be conflicts," Morphosai continued. "The only difference would be that you would not have authority over both sides in these conflicts."
"Still, it would be an enormous change for both our peoples," Celestia said.
"Why Princess," Morphosai said, "is changing not what we do best?"
Celestia closed her eyes, and bowed her head. "Well played, Queen Morphosai. You have truly bested me."
The Princess looked at Morning Rain and Flitter. "I guess you two can go now," she said. "I would like to ask your opinions as we work this out further, but for now, take your leave." She looked at the changelings floating around the forest. "I think my local regent needs to inform my new citizens of their changed legal status."
"Oh," she said, as the three walked out, "and ask Rainbow Dash to tell Pinkie Pie I could really use some cake right now."
I liked the court scene, although I agree with what Tango said about it being a bit of a rehash.
2093219
Oh no, that was all me saying it needed to be changed. He was the one who helped me out by telling me how I could change it, because I was stumped.
These scenes might've worked if the story was told in flashback, with the court as a framing device.
2093309
I guess... but in the end it's quite irrelevant, since the court hearing never took place in the final story. I literally stopped writing the court scene because I felt it wasn't going anywhere, and then asked Tango for help on the matter.
As I've said a few times before, I probably would never have posted any of the stuff after the original short story (now "chapter 1") if I hadn't found a decent ending for the new stuff I was writing onto it. I had fully written all of the chapters besides Epilogue 2 before I started publishing them.
2093267Oops a misunderstanding. Well, I agree with what you said.
2093342
I think the court scene wasn't even in the version I let him read, actually...
You can tell a lot about an author by the quality of their trash can. This is fine quality trash, but quite correctly trimmed. Very well played.
2093363
Needs a bit of nuancing... this is the trash I, myself chose to keep for future reference while writing
Quite some stuff gets rewritten without full scenes cut out, and I don't tend to keep any copies of that.
A very nice read. i like a lot of things in your head canon for changelings, even if I've decided to do things differently. Consider yourself Followed.
Now, I'm a sucker for Changeling stories, so I was instantly attracted to this when it got featured, but dayum, over a thousand thumbs? This gon' b gud.
2093513
The bit about the mind control spells in the scrapped court scene is one of the reasons I wanted to post this extra, actually... it's just a nice bit of my headcanon about the way Changelings work
Yay! I like seeing some of the different thoughts and ideas that you had as you worked on your story.
I re-read Pink Eyes recently and was surprised to find you credited for working on it. Thanks for your contribution to one of the best Fallout: Equestria fics!
Love the bonuses, but I'm really looking forward to new stuff.
Another awesome chapter-that-is-not-really-a-chapter-thingy. Otherwise known as a bonus chapter!
I do the same thing actually. I have a whole file full of takeouts.
2094097
Mimezinga more or less got me into writing pony stuff... first pony related thing I wrote was the intro of The Daily Unlife, which was just meant as silly (ghoulish) parody of the stereotypical "pony leaves stable" scene done a gazillion times in FO:E spinoffs. He was one of the first people to read it, and he told me, puppy-style, to "write moar".
So yeah, when he needed prereaders for the last chapters of Pink Eyes, I was all too glad I could help him out
Complete!?!? Hah! This story is never complete! Even when it's complete!
2093795 No problem. And after paying attention to the error catching process on this site, I'm starting to think it isn't possible to find all of the errors, as annoying as it may be. There will always be more...
This story never shall be complete!
Wow, I really liked these! Like all deleted scenes, I shed a little tear when I see some of the gems that fell to the wayside during editing...
2094250
2094347
I honestly have nothing Flitter-related left to post after this, though... unless I finally manage to squeeze out a true sequel. And that would probably be posted in its own story entry.
2094467
What madness is this!
An interesting sequel could be about a new Equestrian changeling spy figuring out more about the Hive that invaded Canterlot.
2094506
Heh. Not going to reveal any of the ideas I got in my head for a possible sequel
Yet again, you refuse to use your brilliance to create another story
jk. Love these little "deleted scenes" chapters.
1332 thumbs up 5 more and it will be 1337
Hehe. Cakelestia.
Neat! Dvd extras.
Ooh. Deleted scenes.
I'll get the popcorn.
But honestly, I love a writer who can remember to save the old parts that they scrapped. I keep forgetting to hold onto those... And notepad makes that hard to recover. Ah well. I still think you did a great job.
2094700
I try... I really do... but there's so much to read, so much to do... so little time to just stop and let the imagination flow
2094953
That element was used in the final story, at least
2095594
I dunno... I write everything in Wordpad. Whenever I delete a chunk of which I think "I can't use this here, but there are still some neat ideas in it" I just copy it into my scraps document.
okay their needs to be more to this this story was and is to well written to be thiss short this needs a sequel, a prequel, and a sequel to the sequel oh and that court scene fully written out
2096653
Sorry. Scrapped is scrapped. The Court Scene simply doesn't fit into anything anymore
2096818 i know still id love to read a prequel that starts out from when he became swift star and ending when he gets pulled away to mess with the shield
2096831
...you do realize that's not one story, right? That's twenty fricking years
If I ever write a prequel, it'll probably be a continuation of that bit I posted here as Bonus 2. But as I said in the comments on that, it's not really something that can easily be continued from.
2097891 I thought it looked wrong, did a quick google search, and decided it was wrong. Now I've gone back and done a much more thorough search, and I can't find an instance of "as on cue" used for that meaning, though "on cue", "right on cue", and "as if on cue" appear to be synonymous. Now I'm curious. Do you know where you've seen it used?
2098172
Just a quick Google Search which mostly turned up more fan fiction... so yeah, not really professional writing.
If you mean, originally, well, not a clue. English isn't even my native language
Unless this is getting even more confusing, I hope you mean "on cue", "right on cue", and "as on cue", right?
2098222 No, I meant what I typed. From what I can tell, "as on cue" doesn't mean anything at all, though the words may be found next to each other through sheer coincidence.
2098277
Ahh. I see.
I found writing examples of it by searching for both together and quoted, actually. As I said though, most of those seemed to be from fan fiction, so they're probably simply all wrong
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that there's no such thing as "as on cue".
Your faithful changeling culture historian
Nyerguds
This is a great story! I loved it.
What have we learned from this? Celestia never laid claims to the Everfree in the last thousand years.
Seriously, that line is like a constant that never changes.
2099067
Hey, I did say these were scraps I recycled stuff from. It just so happens that particular one was used in yet another scene, which was also scrapped, and then the line still ended up in the final story after all.
Because it was a good line
Overall, it was simply Celestia's planned reaction to the existence of a hive in the Everfree.... but where and how that reaction happened went through quite some revisions. You have to realize, the court scene was long scrapped at the moment I even started writing the negotiations scene.
Man, this story's got more bonus content than D-Mode-D's 'Just Love' album
Bonus material! This is the one reason why I don't like Netflix. They never give you the bonus disk.
I know this is just scraps, but I can't help it:
Now to back-track and read the original one-shot!
2102309
Heh, yeah, these obviously weren't proofread as much as the rest. Thanks
2105489
Yes, I did mean 'accept'. Homophones need to be force fed prune juice!
I know very well what clicking a Tropes link entails. I have wasted many blissful hours of my life there.
And someone above has proven my point from earlier. There are always more. Always.
This is awesome! I've read my fair share of "Changelings trying to live in Equestria" sotries, but yours takes the cake as the best I've read!
2112115
Thanks! I personally dislike the cliché "thrown out of Canterlot, all alone now, tries to build new life, is suddenly not an evil invader anymore" premise... so I tried something completely different
And hey, Changelings are pretty neat, but as a species and a culture, they were vastly underdeveloped.
2112571
So true! Good job breaking the mold!
2111061
Of course, actually getting to the part where the Old Ways are mentioned is going to take some time...
Beautiful story but I must confess the cover picture made it seem far grimmer than It was and so prevented me from reading it for a long while.
2114870
Well, I've learned that any story with some sort of cover art catches the eye of the reader faster. Hence why I threw together a bunch of pics and made that thingy.
...maybe I should add the Comedy tag to this... is this worth a Comedy tag? Not sure... it definitely has some comedy in it, but comedy is just my filler material, usually
2115962
Comments to my stories are the only payment I get; don't deprive me of those!
2118131 I would support a comedy tag. It was more that the picture I guess feels like a lot of horror movie posters so my brain immediately went "Screw how interesting it sounds it's way too scary"