Quarterfinals: Luster Lock vs. Lilligold - Winner: Lilligold (by Vote)
What You Love - by Luster Lock's Author
Prologue
A clack, a whir, and a clack.
“INFERNAL FERN,” read the title card in splotchy, childish hornwriting. A quill scratched on paper in the dimly lit room.
Clack, whir, clack.
“Fern made of fire! Didn’t last long, though.
FIRST USED: Lit fireplace, with The New Spell.
TRYING TO REDO WITH: Ugly torch, with The New Spell.”
More scratching, then clack, whir, clack.
A low table was pictured, behind which was a unicorn filly, light of coat and lighter of mane in the sepia. Young enough for her star-and-lily cutie mark to be wondrous, but old enough for it to be broken in. On the table lay a gnarled and cloth-wrapped bit of wood.
Clack, whir, clack.
Three quarters of the next slide were blackened and warped, and the rest showed the wide eyes and open mouth of the filly—possibly screaming.
More clacks and whirs, but the next three slides were even more damaged.
“TUMBLERWEED,” read the fourth. A moment passed, and then a sigh disturbed the silent air. There came a fervent scribbling, and then more of the normal scratching. Then the next slide was slotted in.
“Really cool metal vines, with a working keyhole!
FIRST USED: Lock on granny’s hope chest (NtS: Apologize!), with The Spell and The Other Spell.
TRYING TO REDO WITH: Padlock, with The Spell and The Other Spell.”
Yet more quill-scratching. Clack, whir, clack.
The same table as before—though scorched in the center—with the same filly behind it and a solid-looking padlock sitting on top.
Clack, whirrrrrr, clack.
“ZENBREATH SPROUT,” read the slide.
A growl rang out. At once, a pale green glow flared brightly and lit the patch of the room by the projector, then a series of lanterns came to life and finished the job.
A unicorn mare sat hunched over an open journal on the projector’s table, set up in the center of a small room—otherwise barren but for mostly empty bookshelves along one wall and the stacks of boxes along another. And the dust coating most every surface.
The mare, a lively pink excepting the dark bags beneath her eyes, reached a hoof forward and powered off the projector. With a screech of wood on wood, she stood from her stool and peered down at the projector’s carousel.
The spaces before the currently loaded slide were empty.
She growled again, sitting her star-and-lily-stamped flank back onto the stool. The quill on the table rose up in her magic, and as it started scratching away once more, she eyed the journal’s page.
How about a fruit that tastes different every time you bite into it? Bowl of fruit, with Spell #7?
Weeks and can’t stop making it taste like all at once. Move on.Flowers with perma-dew that doubles as a sweet juice drink? Hibiscus, with Spells #5 and #14?
Perfected in half an hour. Where’s challenge?
A phoenix-like plant that regrows after it gets burn
Called a pine tree, idiot.
Maybe a type of grass that sings when wind
No no no! Did last year and was utterly dull!
What if I could
A reedGardener’s Block Therapy
Maybe look through old trials for something to perfect?
1.
Onyxrock Pepper. Orig: mine vein, Spells #1 & #6. Redux: large gemstones, Spells #1 & #6.Failed to reproduce.
2.Wallow-well Moss.Perfected back then.
3.Infernal Fern. Orig: fireplace, Spell #3. Redux: torch, Spell #3.Mane is just how I like it.
4.Tumblerweed. Orig: grandma hope chest, Spells #1 & #2. Redux: padlock, Spells #1 & #2.Failed to reproduce.
5.
6.
7.
The mare stared at the page, eyes bloodshot but blank. The quill hovered, jittering slightly.
She flipped to a blank page and started writing.
Gardener’s Block Therapy (Cont.)
Inspiration vacation. Close Glimmering Gardens and block new commissions.
Tired of woods. Always woods around Elmshire, or deserts. Tired of Elmshire! Tired of country!
Tired of deserts.
Visit Equestria? Where in?Always a happy little town over there.
No more woods, no more deserts, no more happy little towns. Urban?
Elmshire is urban…Go to urban place.Go to reasonably urban place. Small city, not too crowded.Go get spark back.
What You Love
Free Writing
Okay okay okay, alright. Elmshire far behind. Can I write again? Think of plants? Am I creative yet? What have I done what have I done, well, I caught one of those fancy dirigibles. Way more bits than trains or a ship but last time I took a vacation was before I opened the store. Years Mother used to say treat yourself but I never
First time on a dirigible and it’s a beast of a thing all dark and it looks scaly and they might have used real dragon scales on the outside. I bet it’s just lifted with light gas or magic but I picture the insides like a hot air balloon from Tartarus fire roaring
The little mare held for dear life onto her mount, its roars and belching flames piercing the sky.
“Steady!” she called up from its back, but the wind was too strong to carry the command. It was all she could do to keep her hooves wrapped around one of its massive black spines.
She made the mistake of
She looked down to the world below, and marveled. Her dragon was bringing her over the sunny sands of the San Palomino. The mare had walked that land as a foal, soaked up its heat for days on end like a sword in a forge, and grown strong. That knowledge burning in her mind, she called once more, “Steady!”
The dragon checked its turbulence with a grunt, at last, and the little mare looked ahead, towards the green lands of their destination.
Equestria. It would be hers.
Something beautiful, but hard and dangerous. Try to get some dragon scales. And some nice, thorny sorts of roses? Spells #2 and #7?
Hoofington was chilly. It was well into the afternoon, but mist hung low about the dirigible landing pad just in from the city’s outskirts, and the skies were more white than blue.
A single-file line of ponies came down the great airship’s tiny staircase, many of them dressed in sharp suits or sober dresses. A few others were undressed, and all the rest wore only enough for the temperature.
A pink-coated, silver-maned, star-and-lily-marked mare in a forest green scarf reached the base of the steps. One hoof held a paperback journal close to her chest, the front cover of which read, “Property of Lilligold,” then, “a.k.a. A Unicorn,” then, “i.e. Open at Own Peril!”
Lilligold peeled the journal open as she walked, and she drew a quill out from her scarf with her magic and set it to the page.
Never tried turning something into a cloth or other textile kind of thing. Decorated so many weddings, but what if I could make a living dress material for a bride? Any colorful flowers. Might need a new spell.
Hoofington had no skyscrapers, no grand monuments. No towers and nothing towering. Past the loose cobblestone pathway in from the landing pad was a small commercial district, filled predominantly with squat, utilitarian brick buildings.
Color came in the form of signs, mostly, shining with neon and magic in shop windows or above awnings. Traffic was subdued but not negligible, and Lilligold pony-watched even as she moved deftly through and past groups of fellow pedestrians.
Formless neon flower(s), definitely Spell #3. Easy, though. Maybe a self-reshaping glass shell for it, too? Spells #1 and #7, with a little tweaking.
Lilligold was smiling brightly, scratching away at her journal without even having to look. Instead, her eyes darted all around herself.
To the busy intersection, carriages whizzing by. To the clothing outlet with the sparkling gowns on display. To the food cart selling a variety of aromatic teas. To the abandoned side street with the boarded up buildings. To the cheerful, bronze-painted street performer. To the dubious smoke shop with the tinted windows. To the toy store with the chintzy tune pouring out its open door. To the inky shadows in the cramped alleyway.
Her quill had eaten two full pages by the time she came to a break in the district: a bridge over a river that ran right through the city. On the other side appeared to be more businesses, though their signs were less elaborate and the buildings themselves were somehow even squarer.
But Lilligold’s eyes were wide as she crossed the bridge.
On its sides were fencing to keep ponies from falling (or leaping) to the water below, and on the fencing were hung a multitude of padlocks. Some were dark and basic, others bright and elaborately engraved. Some were cheap and tinny, others encrusted with gems. Some fat, some teeny, some sharp, some curvaceous. Many, many of them were in the shape of hearts.
Lilligold slowed to a stop as she took more of the sight in, and her expression slipped into blankness. She stood aside from the flow of ponies over the bridge, flipped back a few pages in her journal, and read. Then she skipped forward to a fresh page, raising the quill.
Temp. Notes
If you found these notes, stop reading here. This means you!
Tumblerweed.
Originally made from grandma’s hope chest’s lock, Spells #1 and #2. Tried to remake with padlock (unsuccessful).
Spell #1 = frame spell, tangible base material → plant. Probably didn’t cause the failure.
Spell #2 = manifestation of emotion/intention.Emotion or intention w/ padlock? Probably little to none. I think I bought it that day, just to try to make a tumblerweed? I didn’t care much about it, any rate.
Granny loved that hope chest (never apologized for uglying it up, you jerk). Gramper gave it to her, had lots of “memories” inside. That lock meant something, to her at least.
Protects something important.
Want to make a tumblerweed, probably need a lock somepony cares about.
She ripped the page from her journal with a hoof, tore and crumpled it up, and tossed the remains over the fence. A couple of passing ponies aimed scowls at her back, but said nothing.
Lilligold stared hard at one of the padlocks before her. It was simpler than most of the others—a heart, flat-fronted like it had been cookie-cut from a pan of steel, with a perfectly stereotypical keyhole in its center. Colored a glossy, even azure, and its clasp a polished silver.
Her horn’s glow suddenly flared a few notches bigger and brighter—but just as quickly diminished back to only its hold over the quill. She bit her lip, and she brought the quill down.
NtS: It’s not right to experiment on other ponies’ things without asking. You know this. Stop.
Lilligold let her journal float in her magic as well. She brought her freed hoof up to the heart-lock, lifted it, and tilted her head. The edge of the back read, in letters embossed on the metal, “Lock’s Locks, Ltd.”
“Welcome to Lock’s Locks!” said a high-pitched male voice the very second that Lilligold walked in the door. She winced and held her journal even closer, but turned all the same. She found an off-white, older unicorn stallion with a curly green mane and particularly glittery eyes, who continued, “I’m Block Lock, and I’d bet bits to bolts you’re new to the place. Anything in particular bring you to our store this afternoon, miss?”
Lilligold’s eyes roved over the shop and the other patrons milling about. It had a very focused design scheme, certainly: from where she stood could be seen many tall, matte gray, hardware store–like shelves stocked with a great many different kinds of lock paraphernalia—padlocks, chains, things with locks pre-mounted in them like knobs or small strongboxes, a selection of what looked to be precise little tools, and more.
Thin, metal plants that shape into tools on command! **Fourth-quarter project, all on its own.
All of it was very iron-and-steel, very cold and dark. Except—Lilligold started when she saw it—the swirling rainbow patterns of the entire western wall’s papering, and all of the colorful locks mounted on the great chain link fence that stretched across its surface. Most of the ponies in the store were concentrated there.
She pointed a hoof to it, saying, “I passed by a bridge, and—”
“Say no more, miss.” Block Lock, grinning, began walking towards the back of the shop.
Lilligold hesitated in taking her first step, but she followed a moment later.
“Hey, Ellie!” called out Block as they passed the edges of the last shelves and came to a more poorly lit portion of the building: a small work area off from the counter with the register. Two pegasus mares were bent over a large workbench there, bright lamps pointed down at locks their wings were working with.
The pegasus that looked up at Block’s call had a dim gray coat and a bluer, longer, and even more curly mane than him. Plus a cutie mark practically identical to the heart-lock back on the bridge, with an open clasp. She said, “Yeah, Pop?”
He nodded towards Lilligold. “Got another love lock initiate here. From out of town, I think.” At Lilligold’s blank stare, he added, “Bit of an accent, miss. And the bridges are old news by now.”
‘Ellie’ let the tools fall from her wings and onto the benchtop. She turned to the other mare, blue-coated and straight-maned, and said, “Leave mine alone this time, Ma.”
The older mare just sniggered, not taking her eyes or wings from her work.
Ellie came forward into the light, and looked to be roughly the same age as Lilligold—though of the two of them, Ellie’s eyes looked far duller, at the moment. Her smile was bright, though, and she extended a wing to Lilligold. “Luster Lock.”
Lillig
“Oops, um.” Lilligold’s horn flared brighter, and she hovered Luster’s wing firmly up and down. “Lilligold,” she said, putting a smile on as well. “So… not ‘Ellie’, then?”
Luster shook her head, and she started towards the western wall. “Ma’s named pretty much the same thing as me. Gets confusing.” The pair arrived at the chain link fence, and she turned back to Lilligold and continued, “So yeah, love locks. Haven’t heard of ’em, I’m guessing?”
Lilligold shook her head.
“All the rage a couple months back,” said Luster, “with all the other locksmiths around copycatting, but I've been at it way longer. Got popular when I finally got ’em classed as interactive art instead of vandalism—you’d need to check your own place’s rules on that, by the way.” A mock-stern glare. “Not liable, us. But yeah, point of ’em is they symbolize unbreakable love between the owners. You set one up someplace and get rid of the key.”
Her eyes wide, Lilligold said, barely above a whisper, “Perfect.”
Luster smirked. “Got a special pony back home, then?”
But Lilligold said quickly, “Luster, I have something of a queer proposal.”
“Er.” The smirk fell steadily from Luster’s face. “Not that I’m not into that, but if we’re talking love locks and, like, commitments, then I don’t know how it goes where you’re from, b—”
Face burning pinker than pink, Lillgold waved a hoof wildly about. “No!” she yelled, before shoving the hoof over her mouth. She lowered it again only after the other patrons stopped staring, and continued, much more quietly, “I meant a business offer.”
The smirk resurfaced. “Oh, right on. What’s the deal?”
“A short summary.” Lilligold’s stance went professionally rigid, as though there were a podium in front of her. “I own, operate, and stock a specialty agriculture store in my homeland. Magical plants, artistic and practical both, all of them my personal designs and breeds—and such a thing requires a great deal of experimentation.”
“Right…” Luster’s eyes darted down to Lilligold’s journal and back up. Her expression didn’t change, but her tone was a touch less enthusiastic as she said, “When you say ‘experiment’, you’re not glossing right over some freaky, cauldron-y stuff or something, yeah? Nothing super weird?”
“Not…” Lilligold frowned. “Cauldrons aren’t involved as a rule, and certainly not in my proposal. Why?”
“Because I think I know where this is headed.” Luster’s eyes were keeping a laser-focused watch on Lilligold’s face. “Listen, Lilligold, we sell top-notch locks here, and you wouldn’t be the first or even the fortieth eccentric pony to come in with some well thought-out story for why your shed happens to need a wagonful of ’em, or just the strongest lock in the whole—”
“Please stop.” Lilligold slipped her journal into her scarf and rubbed her hoof to her temple. “It’s nothing as nefarious as all that, I assure you. I keep my work very private, yes, but what I need the locks for… here.”
Lilligold looked about—no one but Luster was looking her way. The unicorn shut her eyes, and her horn brightened, magic swirling visibly along the pattern of its fluting. The air in front of Luster’s face glowed lightly and began to spiral just the same. The spiral spun faster, pressing into itself, and in a matter of seconds, the air in the field was a dense and visible thing.
Luster’s eyes widened, and in the next instant, the glow was gone and the air had taken a floral shape: a long stem topped with petals blooming in a spiral pattern, pinwheeling slowly. It began floating to the ground, more lightly even than a downy feather, and Luster reached out a wing, catching it undamaged.
“Free sample,” said Lilligold, opening her eyes. “It should last a few days, kept outside of any tightly enclosed spaces. Just do not get it near an open flame.”
Luster raised and lowered her wing, guiding the ghostly, delicate bloom through the air for a few moments, before looking back up to Lilligold. “This is the sorta thing you want to do to my locks?” Her eyes were fuller, more awake.
Lilligold shook her head. “As I was saying, my work takes experimentation. Your ‘love locks’ might be just what I need to complete an old project, and only after I can verify th—”
“What do you need?”
Luster’s eyebrow rose. “You just carry them around in there…?”
“It always pays to be prepared,” said Lilligold, shutting her journal and sliding a sheet of parchment and her quill across the table to Luster.
One that read, at the top, “Glimmering Gardens Official Oath of Secrecy.”
The storeroom of Lock’s Locks was much like the showroom, in that its lighting was fighting a losing battle against the sheer size and quantity of its shelves. More so, given that there were no windows. Still, room had been found for a pair of stools and a small table, from which came the room’s only sound: a quill tip scratching on parchment.
“Done,” said Luster, and her other wing relinquished its hold on a love lock, which fell to the table with a heavy clank. “And done. Now c’mon, lemme see it!”
Lilligold smiled and lit up her horn. The form and quill tucked themselves into the journal, and the lock—an orange and green thing, shaped into a side view of two kissing, closed-eyed pony faces—moved to the table’s center.
The glow turned intense. It was as though it was thickening, looking almost solid enough to be touched and felt. The lock rattled against the wood. Still, the magic expanded—Lilligold was grunting through gritted teeth, now. The lock was beginning to dent the table.
And then the magic winked out. Lilligold was lightly panting.
“That’s it?” said Luster, face deadpan. The lock was still a lock. “Did we really just waste that much time?”
“A failed experiment isn’t a waste,” said Lilligold, picking the love lock up in her hooves. “Though… I really did think I was on to it.”
Luster sat back on her stool. “On to what, exactly?”
Lilligold stared blankly into Luster’s eyes for a moment, then said, “I suppose you’re sworn to secrecy either way—I do hope you took note of the hefty fines, by the way—so there’s not very much harm in telling you. I suspected that there’s an emotional component to the process of making this breed. Somepony has to care about the lock. About it protecting something important.”
Luster blanched.
Running her hoof over the lock, Lilligold continued, “I saw your cutie mark. It’s you that makes these, correct? If I’d been right, the love and intention you imbue into them just through the act of creating them would surely—”
“Er.” Luster gave a dry, weak chuckle. “Since we’re already sharing secrets—” She held up a hoof as Lilligold’s mouth opened. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You can have mine for free, long as you promise you won’t go blabbing to my parents—it might break their hearts, and I couldn’t do that to them.”
Lilligold shut her mouth, and she nodded firmly.
Luster steepled her primaries, fidgeting. “Well, they think the same thing you probably do. That I got my cutie mark making my first love lock, or whatever—and I did get it right around then, and it probably does have something to do with why it looks how it does, but…
“I got my cutie mark by picking a lock, not by making one.”
Silence settled back into the storeroom’s air.
“So…” said Lilligold. And after a moment, “Your special talent is picking locks?”
Luster winced. “Yeah and no.” She sat forward on the stool again, setting her hooves on the table. “Thing is, when I was a filly, before my parents trusted me to take care of myself, we had double cylinder knobs installed on the shop’s doors—locks not just outside, but inside, too. This one night, some school friends want to go to some bad concert, and I tell myself I need to go with them—any excuse, right?—and so I bust out. And then I just walk around Hoofington, feeling the night air on me, and I get my mark. Don’t even go to the concert.”
She sighed and continued, “Next day, my parents think I was up late working hard on my love lock design and got my mark like that. And I couldn’t set ’em straight—couldn’t say I think locks kinda suck, at least when they’re in my way.”
Lilligold placed the padlock back down on the table. “And these?”
Luster’s ears fell apologetically, and she said, “I really don’t care about them, past that they’re a lot more fun to make than a standard kind of lock. Artsier. They’re… just a good outlet, you know?”
Her hoof sliding over to touch her journal, Lilligold gave a small nod. “But they’re not what you love.”
“Right,” said Luster. She stood up from her stool. “I guess this means…?”
Lilligold nodded more firmly, picking her journal up and standing herself. She looked to Luster, and said, “We don’t have any further business. I apologize for taking so much of your time.”
They made their way to the door, Luster waggling a wing and saying, “Nah, it’s no big thing.”
The showroom was empty of other ponies; darkness had fallen fully outside.
Lilligold smiled, shaking her head as she walked. “It was inexcusable.” Past the shelves, at the front door, she added, “In fact, I insist on a proper apology.”
Before Luster could get a word out, Lilligold’s horn was surrounded by magic. It expanded, thickening to opaque, and coated the front door’s knob. A tingling filled the air, and built.
And then wiry, dark vines sprouted out around the knob’s lock. They reached and spread, all along the door, fattening as they went. Coil after coil wove about one another, until at last, every vine had reached the floor or part of the doorframe and braced itself there, hard. The glow faded.
“No matter your feelings on locks,” said Lilligold, quietly, “there does indeed seem to be something in this shop worth protecting.” Lilligold turned her smile on Luster, and continued, at normal volume, “This free sample, at least, should be much more permanent.”
With wide eyes, Luster produced a small key from within her wing and fitted it into the ‘doorknob’. She jumped as the vines suddenly retracted exactly opposite how they’d grown out.
Lilligold opened the door, stepped out, and breathed the air. “Have a good night, Luster.”
She started away, pulling out her journal.
Epilogue
Luster moved between the shelves, snuffing out lanterns as she went. The pitch black outside the shop windows took a firmer and firmer hold on the room. She reached the work area, where her lamp was putting out the only light on the floor, and she approached the workbench.
The lock she’d been struggling to restore earlier in the day sat shining beneath the hard light. Pristine and fully assembled.
Luster sighed, smiling. “Damnit, Ma…”
She sat at the bench, taking the lock into her wings. Eyeing it. Running her feathers along it. Just holding it. Holding it.
Another sigh.
She set the lock down and drew open one of the bench’s underside drawers. Out came a paper and a pencil, and she placed them beneath the lamp.
Dear Guys,
Next time I talk to you, I know you’ll tell me you felt it coming, and you get it.
Bye for now. Probably for a real long time, for this one.
Love you both to bits. Be safe.
~ Ellie ~
L-Block - by Lilligold's Author
The golem dropped her in the cell, and only then did Luster Lock realize how much trouble she was in. She wheeled around and bared her teeth at the stone monstrosity—it stood on two legs and blocked her only escape, staring at her with snakebite eyes that glowed honey yellow. “See something you like?” Luster growled.
As if in response, the golem shifted. Its body filled the exit, blocking the tunnel off entirely. The lights in its eyes faded—the only trait separating it from the surrounding stonework now were two black points where its eyes had been. With that, Luster was alone with the sound of her own breathing.
She reared back and spat on the golem. The saliva oozed towards the floor with the consistency of a blood clot. Luster turned away and collapsed on her haunches. She felt like she’d just run a marathon in the dead of summer. Her body ached, her mind throbbed, her nostrils burned, and all she wanted was to go home—not an inclination she normally had, but the quiet of Hoofington would be paradise next to the silence of prison. It wasn’t an option though, so she put it out of her mind. She focused instead on assessing the isolation chamber for all it was worth.
It was cramped. Widthwise she barely had enough room to fully extend her wings, and less than twice that lengthwise. The air inside felt like it hadn’t moved in centuries, and it smelled of dust and sewage. The floor, ceiling, and walls—even the golem, now—all consisted of the same fat cobblestones. Thin lines of magic ran where the mortar would be, the same sickly yellow of the golem’s eyes. Otherwise, the room’s only features were a dark, smelly gutter near the exit and a high slit of a window on the room’s far side. The view outside was almost immediately blocked by a wall of earth. Only the final crumbs of sunlight reached Luster’s cell. Moss crept past the bars and hung on the wall like a stain.
No immediate options for escape presented themselves, and that frustrated her immensely. Even the exit lacked a lock to try and pick. Her body begged for rest, but her mind screamed at her to find a way out. If not for herself, then for Trixie. That was the whole reason she was in this mess anyway.
Trixie… Luster’s body tightened. The image of Trixie shackled and silent behind bars burned in her mind’s eye—that red thing clamped around her horn, locked by such a pedestrian mechanism. If only Luster had been a little faster.
Her eyes steeled over. She closed them and shook her head. Frustration wouldn’t help her right now. As much as she hated it, Luster knew she had to play the long game. She lay down and let exhaustion overwhelm her.
***
Lilligold had heard commotion in the next cell over—she was certain she had. She’d been prone to a few delusions in the time she’d been imprisoned, but none had made any sense until now. It had been the grinding of a stone golem and the voice of a pony, both echoing to her through the gutter. She was positive: another unicorn had been sent to solitary confinement.
Naturally, she said nothing. The last thing she needed was attention. She wanted nothing more than to be alone with her thoughts. The confinement was solitary, after all.
She rested her head against the wall. Her horn made a peculiar tock noise as it tapped the stone. A painful reminder of the magic capacitor binding her horn. Every time she remembered it, she reflexively tried to cast a spell. And every time it sent the same, disgusting wave through her, like she’d ingested something that her body was rejecting. She screwed up her face and tried to ignore it.
Her thoughts wandered back to her plants, as they always did. She always tried to recall the happy memories—the store she had built and groomed and loved with all her heart—but the trauma of her last night there always thrust itself upon her like a bleeding gash in her mind. Every detail pounced at her and bit like snakes. How those golems had come from nowhere and wreaked pandemonium. How… he had grabbed her in his slimy magic and stolen. He, with his savage eyes and voice like wind.
Lilligold bit her lip. Her eyelids fluttered in vain to cool the heat of her tears. She’d grown so weary of crying, but she still couldn’t help it. The thought of all her plants, stolen or silenced amid the carnage. Years of work she’d put her heart and soul into, gone in the span of no time at all.
And Audrey…
That did it. That always did it. A sob wrenched from Lilligold’s chest. Crying burned her lungs and stung her throat, but she needed it. And so she sobbed. It was the only sound she found familiar lately, and that only made her sadder. She squeezed her eyes shut.
“Hey…” rasped a voice. Lilligold cinched her lips.
“Hey,” it said again. It came distantly through the gutter. “Hey. Is somepony there? I think I heard crying.” A pregnant silence ensued. It lasted a decent while, and Lilligold nearly thought the mare had given up, but then she heard, “If you are there, say something. Please. I could really use someone to talk to.”
Lilligold said nothing. She was in solitary for a reason—they both were.
“You probably could use someone to talk to too, right? C’mon. It’s not like we’re getting outta here anytime soon. Not without some help, anyway. Gimme something to work with here.”
Still, Lilligold’s lips remained locked. Nothing she could say would help this pony. Nothing this pony could say would help her. It was hopeless.
The pony groaned. “Look, I know I heard something, alright? There’s no way I’m already going crazy down here. So stop messing around and say something!” The vigor in her voice struck Lilligold less than the scratchy undertone. Her heart screamed at her to say anything, but she wouldn’t.
Dungeon silence resumed. Lilligold didn’t dare move lest her hooves click too loudly on the stone. She only listened, praying the pony would give up and fall asleep before long.
“Please…” the voice said. “Please be there. I can’t be alone down here. I just… can’t.”
Those words sent a pang through Lilligold too sharp to bear. She silently cursed her conscience and whispered, “I’m here.” She waited, and when no reply came, she moved closer to the gutter and said, “I’m here.”
“You are?” Lilligold made to reply, but the mare was quicker. “Ha! You are! I knew there was somepony there. Why didn’t you say something before?”
Lilligold worked her tongue uselessly. How could she even hope to articulate it? She finally settled on a lie. “I don’t know. Disbelief, I suppose. It’s been so long since I’ve spoken to another pony.”
“Seriously? How long have you been down here?”
“Two months, perhaps a little more.” She knew that only because she’d been counting her… punishments. Once weekly, and there had been eight so far. She shivered.
“Yow. What did you do to get locked down here instead of in the main building with all the other ponies?”
Despite the fact that the mare couldn’t see her—or perhaps because of it—Lilligold blushed. “I… would rather not say.”
There was a moderate pause. “That bad, huh?”
Lilligold swallowed hard. “Perhaps we could discuss something else.” She thought for a moment. “My name is Lilligold, by the way.”
“Oh, right. Luster Lock, locksmith and former escape artist. Irony’s a bitch, eh? I got caught trying to bust out an old friend, and now I’m here. What’s your story?”
That caught Lilligold’s curiosity enough. “Caught? You weren’t abducted?”
“Uh, no.” In the ensuing silence, Lilligold realized she’d said exactly the wrong thing. “You were?”
Lilligold’s throat dried up, so she nodded. When she realized how silly that was, she said, “Yes. All of us were. Except for you, it would seem.”
Even though Lilligold couldn’t see Luster Lock’s face, she imagined her mouth to be hanging open. “What kind of prison is this? Why were you abducted?”
At that, Lilligold was lost for words. Unfortunately, fate seemed determined to answer the question for her.
The golem in Lilligold’s door stirred. She reflexively yelped and curled as far from it as she could, trembling in the corner like a schoolfilly anticipating a scolding.
“Lilligold?!” Luster called. “What’s going on?!”
“No! No!” Lilligold screamed. The golem stepped forward and reached an arm out to her, its soulless eyes burning deeper into her memory. “Please! Not again! Stop!”
Luster Lock was yelling something, but it was muffled behind the ringing in Lilligold’s ears. The golem clenched its fist around her tail and yanked her into the air. She kicked and thrashed and pleaded, but the golem continued unabated. It carried her out of the cell, her screams echoing through the dungeon blackness.
***
The tiredness was becoming downright painful now, but Luster was determined not to fall asleep. Not until Lilligold came back. She needed to know what was going on in this place. All she really knew was that Trixie had gone missing while touring in Elmshire, and she’d tracked her down to here. Beyond that, she had no idea.
Soon enough, the silence was disturbed by a distant rumbling. It grew closer and closer, until the roar of grinding stone was nearly on top of her. Luster perked her ears up. Something thudded, and the sound of the stone golem faded. As it did, she heard a soft sobbing coming through the gutter. Luster frowned. “Lilligold?”
There was a gasp, and then the sobbing resumed. Luster tried again. “Lilligold, what happened? Where did you go?”
Lilligold’s sobs redoubled. Her breaths came in erratic pulses, like a pony on the verge of mania. Something that sounded like speech tried to break through the weeping, but Luster couldn’t make out a word.
Stretching for something to say, Luster found herself at a loss. Lilligold’s sobs struck her tired mind heavily. She’d never been much good dealing with serious situations, and this was about as serious as they came.
“We’re gonna get outta here, Lilligold,” Luster said. “I don’t know how, or when, but we will, okay? I’ve gotten out of way worse jams than this.” She wasn’t sure that much was true, but it sounded right. “We can do it. I know we can.”
Whether her words had any impact or not, Luster had no idea. Lilligold’s sobbing seemed to be winding down, at any rate. It descended briefly into sniffles, then stopped entirely. Silence dominated once more.
“Lilligold?” Luster said. When no response came, she didn’t bother trying again. She still had exhaustion to sleep away herself, and now she had a lot more to think about too. She curled up against the wall and was gone in a matter of minutes.
***
The potted flytrap sat before Lilligold, barely more than a sproutling. She bit her tongue and focused. A complex web of magic appeared in her mind’s eye. She wove it into the plant carefully, making sure every spell was precisely aligned, and taking great care not to damage the plant.
When she was done, Lilligold opened her eyes. The flytrap squirmed a little and flapped its leaves. It made raspy mewling noises, tilting its pod every which way. Tears immediately flooded Lilligold’s eyes.
“Hello, little friend,” she said. “Welcome to the world.”
***
A heavy clattering snapped Lilligold awake. She wiped the tears from her eyes—they were still puffy and sore from the previous night. She coughed up some dust and spores, then turned to the door, where the golem was shifting back into place. A wooden bowl rattled at its feet. A thick, black substance rested in it, the surface congealing before her eyes. If she didn’t know any better, she might’ve guessed it was cold tar. The sight always made Lilligold’s stomach turn, but she drew the bowl closer anyway.
“Lilligold?” came Luster’s voice. It jolted Lilligold’s heart a bit. “You awake?”
“Yes,” she said. She dipped her muzzle into the bowl and ate a glob of the stuff. It glued her teeth together, and it always made her fur sticky and rock-hard, but at least it was edible. It tasted about as good as hot slag smelled, though.
“What in Equestria is this stuff?” Luster asked.
“Oatmeal, once upon a time.” She processed what Luster had just said, then asked, “You’re from Equestria, then?”
She heard Luster spit, followed by something skidding across the floor—Luster’s bowl of ‘oatmeal,’ probably. “Uh huh,” she said.
“Quite a long way you’ve come.”
“I was bored. When I heard Trixie’d gone missing, it was the perfect excuse to beat the rhythm, y’know? Little adventure, save a friend, perfect summer.”
“Ah.” Lilligold took another bite of oatmeal.
A brief silence settled, then Luster said, “So, about last night… what exactly happened?”
Lilligold chewed on the oatmeal longer than necessary, buying time to muster up some courage. She eventually swallowed and said, matter-of-factly, “I was taken away for punishment.”
“Punishment? What did you do wrong?”
Despite her efforts, Lilligold could sense heat building in her eyes again. “Nothing. Nothing at all. He just… does it. For his own pleasure.”
A long, thick silence ensued. “Who does?”
“The pony who abducted us. The one keeping us here. He—” Lilligold’s voice hitched. “He takes us, one at a time, and makes us hurt. He puts us through trauma, and just… watches.” She closed her eyes, and a metal greenhouse flashed through her mind.
“Why?”
Lilligold wrenched her eyes shut. “I don’t know,” she squeaked. A sob forced itself from her. “I just want to go home.”
She managed to choke back any further sobbing, waiting for Luster to say something. “You will get home. We both will! I promise, I’ll bust us outta here before you know it.”
Biting her lip and shaking her head, Lilligold said, “It’s not possible. No one can leave this place.”
Amazingly, Luster chuckled. “Clearly you don’t know who you’re talking to. Never met an escape that could stand up to the Radium Maiden! We’ll be out of here in a jiffy.”
Lilligold’s eyes glazed over. “How?”
When Luster’s voice came back, it was downtrodden beyond recognition. “I… haven’t gotten that far yet.”
The silence resumed. And what a long silence it would be.
***
Several months passed in no small time.
When she wasn’t sleeping, Luster was asking Lilligold questions about anything and everything, as though she couldn’t bear the silence—or the solitude. Lilligold had been hesitant at first, but she’d eventually told Luster all about her plants and her shop and her talents. She carefully avoided mentioning Audrey, because she descended into an inconsolable mess whenever she did. Luster only knew her name, that she was a plant, and that she was Lilligold’s oldest friend.
Lilligold didn’t ask so many questions. It was universally Luster who initiated the conversations, and Lilligold preferred to listen unless asked something directly. She gathered that Luster had been an assistant to a street performer named Trixie a long while ago, and she missed that time greatly. Clearly she didn’t find much joy in her profession as a locksmith, but she was always more than happy to bring up Trixie and wax poetic about her memories there.
As the weeks dwindled on, Luster brought up the topic of escape less and less. Whenever she did, Lilligold tended not to comment on it. She couldn’t tell if Luster’s willpower was dwindling, or if she’d simply chosen not to talk about whatever plans she had. All she knew was that the outside world still seemed very, very far off.
In all those months, Luster never left her cell. Lilligold was taken away every week for her punishment, and the process never got any easier. If anything she cried more and more with each passing punishment. She never went into detail about what the punishments entailed—if she tried to, she wouldn’t get very far before succumbing to sobs again.
It was after one of these punishments, and the sleep that followed, that something pivotal happened.
***
Lilligold sat in a vast green field, smiling at Audrey. The flytrap stood about as tall as Lilligold herself now. She rested in the grass, her pot discarded and her roots bare.
With a little giggle, Lilligold sent a ripple of magic through the grass. It brushed up against Audrey, and she turned towards Lilligold. She smiled and chirped, then pulled herself through the grass with her vines.
Lilligold beamed. “Good girl!”
***
“Argh!” Luster slammed her hooves against the golem again. It didn’t budge. She screamed and punched and screamed and punched, rendering her throat raw and her hooves swollen. Her eyes bulged, bloodshot and wet as they were. “Let! Me! Out!”
“Luster,” came Lilligold’s sleepy voice. “What are you doing?”
She smashed both her hooves against the golem and came to a rest, breathing heavily. “I can’t take this anymore, Lilligold! This is killing me! I’m cold! I’m hungry! I’m dirty! And there’s no way out of this fucking cell!” She continued to pound on the rock. Streaks of blood appeared on the wall.
“Please, Luster, calm down! I understand your frustration, believe me, I do, but—”
“I’m so useless!” Luster slammed the golem. Something cracked in her hoof. She didn’t care. “I couldn’t get Trixie out. I can’t get us out. And I don’t even have a purpose in this stupid dungeon! At least you get some attention. At least you get to leave this place for your damn punishments!”
Lilligold didn’t answer for a long time. Again, Luster didn’t care. She just kept blindly punching, though her jabs were losing force.
“Luster, you don’t know what you’re saying.” Her voice was trembling. For whatever reason, that grated on Luster’s nerves. “Those punishments are torture of the worst kind. I would much rather be stuck in this room for years on end than endure even one more of those sessions.”
“Cry me a river!” Luster pivoted and punched the wall above the gutter instead. She rested there and said, “You don’t know what this is like for me. You don’t even know me! You’ve had months to get used to those punishments. Stop being a wimp, already!”
“Pardon me!” For the first time, Lilligold had raised her voice. “Do you even know what those punishments consist of? Would you like me to tell you?!”
“If you can get it out between your crying, be my guest!”
“They make me kill Audrey!” The words rang through the two cells like a guillotine’s thud. “They let me use my magic to revive her, only so they can take her away. Again! And again! And again! So don’t you dare tell me I’m not the one suffering in all this. How would you like to have your dearest friend—your life’s ambition—flaunted before you and be unable to do a thing?”
Luster said nothing. A fire still smoldered in her gut, but it was dwindling into embers. Eventually, she growled, “What life’s work?”
With that, the both of them went quiet. Luster collapsed at the golem’s feet. Her hooves throbbed and gushed scarlet. Her throat ached of dryness. But her headache hurt worst of all. She wasn’t sure she’d wake up again if she lost consciousness, but her body was desperate to quit, and she fell asleep before long.
***
Something smacked Luster in the head, conking her awake. She groaned as lukewarm black goop seeped into her mane from the upturned bowl on her head. She managed to shake the bowl free, but the oatmeal stuck hard in her mane, giving her ironclad hair.
She didn’t even bother trying to rouse Lilligold—they both needed time to think. Instead, she just lay there. Blunt pain wracked her body, but her hooves had stopped bleeding at least. She pushed herself into a sitting position, grunting at the stiffness of her limbs, and set about picking the oatmeal from her mane before it hardened too much.
Much of her hair had clumped together into straight black rods. “Ugh, come on,” she grumbled. But try as she might, the oatmeal was dead set on molding to her mane. She tried to at least separate some of the hairs, but the clump simply bent at her touch. It held firm in its bent position, making it look almost like a lockpick.
Luster blinked.
***
Lilligold stood at the base of her stairs, tears in her eyes as she looked up at Audrey in the mangled doorframe of her bedroom. The cloaked unicorn had Lilligold frozen in his grip—all she could do was stare.
Audrey lunged a vine at the unicorn, but he dodged. “Buffoons!” he called to the two golems ransacking Lilligold’s shop. “Neutralize this vegetable. I want it.” The golems dropped whatever plants they’d been mangling and marched towards Audrey’s vine.
Another vine shot out and nailed the unicorn. Lilligold was freed from his magic grip and collapsed to the floor. “No!” she shrieked. “No! Please!” She summoned her magic and nailed one of the golems. It fell, but it was too late.
The other golem gripped Audrey’s vine. A howl split the night, and the flytrap went limp.
***
“Lilligold!”
Lilligold’s eyes fluttered open—she couldn’t recall a time she’d awoken with more tears in her eyes. She sniffled and rose to sitting. She pulled her bowl of oatmeal close and began eating in silence.
“Lilligold! Come on, get up!”
“I’m in no mood, Luster,” Lilligold mumbled. She wasn’t even sure it was loud enough to make it through the gutter.
“No! Look, I’m sorry about last night, okay? I went crazy and took it out on you. Whatever. But you have to listen! I can get us out of here!”
Lilligold clenched her teeth. “Please stop talking,” she said. “I requested solitary confinement for a reason.”
Wherever Luster had been going, that seemed to derail her. “You what?”
“I prefer to be left alone. I am better off alone. That’s why I asked to be placed in isolation.” She slammed her bowl on the ground and glared at the gutter. “But then you come along and give me false hope. You make me relive my most painful memories time and again. And then you have the gall to trivialize all of this and get angry with me! I’m done with you, Luster Lock.”
In all her life, Lilligold had never scolded anyone so badly. Her conscience screamed at her to apologize, but she refused to listen.
“That’s not true. We need each other, Lilligold. You needed me, and I sure as shit needed you. Now more than ever. Please, Lilligold. You have to believe me. I can get us out. Today.”
Lilligold stomped a hoof on the ground. She was trembling from head to tail. “It’s impossible. You said it yourself.”
“It’s not impossible. It’s just really, really sticky.”
Despite everything, that got Lilligold to raise an eyebrow. “What?”
In the quick silence, Lilligold imagined Luster to be smirking. “You didn’t eat all your oatmeal, did you?”
***
It took two grimy, disheveled manes, many hours of explanation on Luster’s part, and many hours of fumbling on Lilligold’s, but they managed. Lilligold twisted her hair-made-lockpick in the keyhole of her magic capacitor for the umpteenth time, and it clicked. A chill swept through her, and the device clattered to the floor. Magic immediately swelled to her horn like a newly undammed river.
“Was that it?” Luster asked.
Lilligold stared at the magic capacitor, lying in two pieces at her hooves. She chuckled as she lifted the pieces in her magic and launched them down the gutter. “You’ve done it! You’ve done it! Ah ha ha!”
“We did it! All I did was make a mess of my mane and… be a locksmith, I guess!”
“All you did? That’s no small feat, Luster!” Lilligold clasped her hooves around her horn. It tingled with and ambient frequency she’d missed so dearly. “How in the world did you even know how to instruct me on a lock you’ve never seen?”
“I saw it real quick when I tried to bust out Trixie. Looked dead-simple. Turns out it was!” At that, Luster’s tone exploded into one of sheer ecstasy. “Now blow a hole in the wall already!”
Lilligold turned on the dormant golem. “With pleasure.” She lit her horn like a brazen sunflower and fired a shock of magic into the golem’s eyes. It groaned in the doorway, then collapsed into her cell, motionless. The yellow lines criss-crossing the dungeon turned five-alarm red.
Lilligold leapt over the golem and turned to the right. “Stand back!” she shouted. Another beam shot from her horn and struck the second golem guard. It toppled forward with a final thud.
A dark gray mess soared into the corridor and wrapped her in a tight embrace. Lilligold staggered but returned the hug fully, even as the alarm lights flashed all around them.
Luster pulled back and looked Lilligold in the eyes. Her grin was downright infectious. “You look nothing like I imagined, you know that?”
“Likewise,” Lilligold choked out. She was beaming from ear to ear. “But I don’t think this is quite the time.”
“Right.” Luster released her and looked forward down the dank corridor. “Let’s get outta here. Together.” She galloped away.
For a brief moment, Lilligold looked at her own bedraggled mane, still bent in an oatmeal lockpick. “Yes,” she said. “Together.” She took off after Luster.
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Here we go with the contrast between a low-stakes story and a high-stakes. We also have one of those stories with an out-there and completely unexplained premise, which has not been judged favorably so far.
I'm leaning toward the second, because I'm gonna have to give another look at the ending of the first: It turns out Luster does love something there after all, but then the growth that Luster goes through in the end is that she leaves?
...
Wait, what? The story that nails Luster Lock's character was LILIGOLD and the one with all the cool stuff about plants was LUSTER?
Shit, guys. We knew this was going to be a big one, and...
Luster Lock's Author
So I finally decided: The thing that moved my vote, besides what I say below is how much I absolutely LOVED how the story worked. It was very vivid and the stream of consciousness, the notes, the intro scene... those just sealed the deal. I have to say I was very much liking Lilligold's little adventure story, but for me Luster takes the cake.
Luster's Story
Holy crap that story. Luster, it was beautiful. You gave so much personality to Lilligold, it was- I dunno, I mean, I thought I had an idea of who she was, but the way you wrote her is unique. Her interaction with Luster was very interesting, definitely not what I expected. It was subtle, and I love the change it brought up in Luster herself. Well done!
Lillygold's Story
Oh man, Lilly's story tugs at my adventurer side! Lilly, you took a risk with this one, but the characters felt true and interesting. I wasn't too sold when I saw Audrey mentioned again, but you made it really work for the story. I loved how they solved their conundrum, although I think that the word limit really affected what you were doing. Damn. This story needed a second chapter!
Gah. Can't make up my mind. I'll come back to this one later.
Lilligold's Author
Boy was this close. Also really, really good on both sides. Still knew who I was voting for by the end, though.
Luster's entry, like I said, was really good. It was beautifully descriptive and took Lilligold's potential for creativity to the max. But there were one or two things working against it, at least for me. The stream-of-consciousness journal entries were fantastic and the distant third-person narration was a nice balance to them, but at times it was a little overdone, especially in the beginning with the slideshow. That scene just felt painfully slow compared to the journal that followed it. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on, and I had a lot of trouble picturing what was being described. The rest of the entry was much better about that, though I'm curious to see what Burraku thinks of all those sentence fragments.
The other thing was characterization. I loved Lilligold's search for inspiration and her brainstorming notes, but I thought she was awfully confident at the end, to the point where I'm not afraid to hold up the OOC card. Luster herself was good, but didn't really have enough attention to contribute anything to the entry's strength. She wasn't given enough focus to lead me along at the end with her decision to leave, and I didn't get what was going on there until the second read-through.
But the story was good enough I would have ignored both of those things if Lilligold had disappointed me. She didn't. She almost did at the beginning, but thankfully she had the rest of the story to make up for the initial shock of the oddball scenario.
Lilligold's wasn't as impressive artistically, but that's mostly because the story was limited to two effectively identical jail cells and a couple flashbacks, so it's not really a fault. It absolutely shone in characterization, however. Luster was everything I've ever expected from her (without a stallion to flirt with, of course), summed up in this sentence:
I love her so much. Lilligold was spot-on, too. I don't recall, but I'm pretty sure I once said that Lilligold was the sort of character that needed an adventure or dark story to bring out the best in her (I think it was in Round 2 predictions? Or something like that). I admit I frowned when Audrey was brought back into this, but she was actually one of the strongest parts of the story. Do I still think she should have a different name, and maybe not be a flytrap? Absolutely. But for the Angel Bunny to Lilligold's Fluttershy, Audrey is a really good supporting character. It wasn't enough when she was the mute, supportive BFF in Lilligold's romance, but it was more than enough here.
I do love the prisoner story. These two spending months and losing hope was one of the stronger stories of the whole Slamjam, in my opinion. Remember everything I said in defense of my last Rachis story, with the poetry and the AU? This one does all the same things that I said were strengths of good AU writing, without killing either character or technically being an AU. We saw their weaknesses and their strengths because they were brought down to greater levels of stress than they could be in any other way. I thought a while ago about starting a group thread about what to do to win my vote, and Lilligold's Quarterfinal entry nails all of them except being noticeably pretty (which Luster Lock was kind enough to make up for).
Sorry, Luster Lock. You did a fine job the whole way through, but we can't bring both of you forward.
Plus, I really want to read the rest of this story. The villain gave just the right impression to make me want to know more about him.
Plus plus, bonus points to LL for the "queer proposal." Haven't laughed that hard outside a comedy entry all 'jam.
Lilligold's Author
This was a really close one, with two very different yet very good stories. In the end, I'll give it to the second one since it had a more interesting setup and because the I felt the first story didn't do quite enough with Luster's character.
Luster Lock's Author
I enjoyed both of these, but they also both had something that I really didn't like about them.
I didn't like Luster Lock's prologue. It didn't do anything for me and was a real turn off. Once I got past it, it was all good.
And for Lilligold's story, the darkness didn't feel right. Maybe with a larger word count and more time to explain the mysterious pony who tortures ponies for fun and keeps ponies locked up for months and has evil golems that ransacked some part of Equestria(?) (with no one noticing and maybe calling the Royal Guards?) and took a substantial amount of ponies captive there would be something great. I dunno; just doesn't sit right with me. Mainly the tortures ponies for fun thing.
Luster Lock's Author
What You Love
Pros: Very distinct characters, and I loved how engaging it was. The start was a bit rough, but the experimental use of formatting worked overall, I think.
Cons: The opening bit was confusing, and several parts felt rushed.
L-Block
Pros: Very intense. I liked the format, and you handled the flashbacks in a way that enhanced the story nicely. The descriptions serve the mood very well.
Cons: The whole thing was unrelentingly sad to the point of being one-note. The focus is too much on the torture and not enough on the ponies.
Both of these authors took risks, and both works are very commendable. However, there were a few things that tipped the scales in Luster's favor.
"What You Love" had some excellent experimental formatting. The prologue was confusing, but after that, I think the stream-of-consciousness journaling flowed very naturally. This story also did a better job of characterizing both OCs – I definitely got a sense of the differences between Luster and Lilligold, and the dialogue was marvelously written. I wish the ending hadn't been so abrupt, but this did very well as a slice-of-life story.
"L-Block" definitely hit hard, but the phrase my brain keeps coming back to is "torture porn." I feel like a lot of the character development got lost amid the need to constantly kick the ponies. Stripped of the horrifying details, a lot of the story was just the characters narrating details to each other, but not in a way that made them distinct. It felt like it could have been any two ponies in those cells, and it wouldn't have changed the story much. All that said, Lilligold's author is excellent at writing dark stories with gut-wrenching details, and definitely want to read more stories by them once the contest is over (and that goes for Luster's author, too).
Holy hell in a handbasket. I expected this matchup to be a hard one to call, but y'all went above and beyond. This is gonna be almost an impossible choice for me. Not gonna abstain, but I just need to mull these over a bit longer. I'll have more comprehensive opinions on both of these when I come back to vote. Phenomenal job, both authors. Two very different, but very good, stories.
Luster Lock's Author
Edit: Sooo many abstentions, and I can definitely see why.
Not too much to say in terms of the mechanics, in that both stories were edited well enough that I wasn't bothered. Lilligold's author's entry had a missing word and a debatably missing comma, plus a few spots with a touch of pronoun/focus character confusion. All fairly minor things. Still, in terms of what I spotted, Luster Lock's author manages to win out in the mechanics department—I didn't catch any issues there that didn't come off as purposeful (i.e. in Lilligold's note bits). And bonus points for all of the special formatting; I was a little confused at the start, but most all of it started feeling natural in context pretty quickly.
Getting into characterization, Lilligold's author's Luster Lock feels more traditionally Luster-y than Luster's author's Luster (Luster Luster Luster Luster), but overall, I liked the characterization more in Luster's author's story. Lilligold's author was better about giving the two characters emotionally impactful interaction with each other, but I thought that Lilligold felt kind of bland at any point where Audrey wasn't being mentioned, whereas both characters felt individually distinctive in Luster's author's entry. More the character of Lilligold than of Luster, but Luster still felt unique. On the topic of Luster's author's take on Lilligold, though: loved it. Kind of neurotic, kind of cold/socially passive, maybe even a tad self-harmingly obsessive—all stuff not directly stated on her sheet, but all still perfectly valid and used to bring forward the required characterization from a pretty different angle than we're used to seeing.
In terms of plot (as set apart from the characterization that factored into it), here I think Lilligold's author has the advantage, at least for me personally. While it was good that Luster's author had the characters' meeting with one another spring a little more from who they were and a little less from where they were (though both plots felt somewhat contrived in that a character—Lilligold in Luster's author's and Trixie in Lilligold's author's—just sort of threw a dart at the right spot of a map and went there), Lilligold's author's plot was maybe a bit more fully realized in spite of its comparative simplicity. Luster's author had me thinking more while Lilligold's author had me feeling more, and though both are important, Lilligold's author's plot as set apart from the other aspects just felt more viscerally entertaining.
Lilligold's author's entry also felt more smartly paced even with the huge time skip; the ending portions of Luster's author's piece felt like they zipped by a bit too quickly in comparison to the pace of the earlier parts. As for the ending itself, I found it very interesting—and somewhat more satisfying than the one in Lilligold's author's entry. A lot of it comes out more through implication than I might have expected, but if I have it right, it was a nice choice to make the crux of it be that Luster—otherwise one of the more brash, "cooler" OCs in the contest—loves/wants to protect her parents. And speaking of, that relationship felt pretty natural to me, especially considering that this is the parents' first appearance in the competition (though I did go back and see that her sheet does in fact imply that it's her vaguely defined family's shop, and not just hers). Luster's author's entry on the whole seems to ask a bit more of the reader than most of what we've gotten so far, and I definitely appreciate that.
Still, though: I'm not disappointed in the slightest by what we got out of this matchup, even taking into account how much I'd been looking forward to it.
Edit: 6227456
Ha, what, in the notes? If I go check, I think I could probably count on one hand the number of full sentences I personally wrote in my notes for all my courses last term. That aspect added some nice realism for me.
6228717 No no, between the notes, in the flowery narrative descriptions.
There is not a single subject in that entire paragraph, or even a real verb.
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That, too, I would say falls firmly into the category of artistic license. The grand pursuit of doing a thing—here, likely paring down sentences to just evoke some images. I wasn't bothered in the least.
6229221 *sigh*
I got myself all excited for this.
I just couldn't take that paragraph seriously, myself. Wasn't a big deal, I just kind of expected you to mark it down. Oh, well. I'm sure Tactical will come through for the Hawaiian...
Oh wait.
Just can't get any good nitpicking these days. All we get is author drama.
Lilligold's Author
There. I picked one. This was such a difficult decision because both stories did so many things so well, but those things are so inherently different that it's hard to compare and equate them.
For starters, Luster's author's take on Lilligold was really fun to read. This version of her is far and away my favourite in the contest so far—including the way her own author portrays her. There's just something so charming about it. Her neurotic, obsessive, but passionate dedication to her craft. It's a very interesting interpretation of the character sheet, and a perfectly valid one. And the journal format was the perfect way to exemplify it, too. Should Lilligold's author move into the semifinals, I hope he or she takes cues from this story.
And that's saying nothing of Luster Lock. Granted, her characterization was much more limited and much less vivid than Lilligold's, and it didn't really bring anything new to the table, but it was still spot-on. I like that we got to see her family and got a feeling for what the family business is like. and the way she and Lilligold interacted was nothing short of pitch-perfect.
Another strong point was the prose. The descriptions were gorgeous—I could feel what kind of town Hoofington was, and I could practically see the inside of Lock's Locks. They didn't quite verge on purple prose either, which can be a tough line to walk. Plus, they added nicely to Lilligold's character and the plot point of her creativity block. Most of the story is told from her perspective, and being that she's so imaginative and currently on the search for inspiration, the flowery imagery felt very appropriate.
All that said, no story is perfect. I have to echo some other voters' criticism over the opening. I've reread it a few times now and still have a hard time following what's going on. It was a format that needed to be eased into, not something you open with. The only reason it works as a hook is because the reader is trying to dissect what's even happening, and that keeps them reading until it starts making sense or until it overwhelms them, which is not a great scenario.
And for how great the characters and setting were, I wish the plot hit the same mark. It was pretty blasé, and there were a few contrivances that bugged me. Like the way Lilligold chose Hoofington as her destination seemed pretty forced, and the fact that she'd designed a plant that happened to incorporate a padlock seemed awfully convenient. Those contrivances didn't bother me too much in the grand scheme of things—they were both believable enough, I suppose—but they were noticeable.
That's all I can really say, though. I adored this story—it was charming and beautiful in all the right ways, and it's hard not to give it my vote. But I'm afraid it's even harder not to give Lilligold's author my vote.
I want to get the bad out of the way so I can end on a positive note here. There was very little I didn't like about Lilligold's story, but no story is without its faults.
There's a certain brilliance in how little this story explains about its premise, but some things about it were just hard to swallow. Like how did Luster find out Trixie had gone missing anyway, and why was Trixie down in Elmshire to begin with? I can think of enough ways to explain both of these things, but the story never touched on them. Granted, to explain them would've pulled attention away from the story's main focus, and it obviously would've had to replace something else in order to fit the word limit, but it's still a mark against the story.
And my only other complaint is that this was a really big story to try and fit into 4,000 words, and it doesn't fit perfectly. It's similar to Lilligold's Round 3 entry in that way, although I think the Round 3 story was much more cramped than this one. Still, the ending seemed a little fast, and I can't help but want to see more of what happened during their imprisonment.
Of course, the fact that I only want to see more of the story is never a bad thing.
I think this is a case where both authors nailed the characterizations, and they both did something unique with the characters, but Lilligold's author took a risk and pushed it to an extreme—and it worked. Lilligold's author dug deep into the psyches of Lilligold and Luster and produced an intense, visceral, sometimes-hard-to-read experience. Luster's characterization was especially powerful, and Lilligold's characterization was beautiful in how much it didn't say. And—others have already said this, but it bears repeating—Audrey was worked in wonderfully. Lilligold absolutely shone whenever that plant was brought up.
Of course, such a powerful story needed a radical setting to bring it about. And I think this is quite probably the most radical setting in the contest to this point—except maybe Rachis's AU in Round 2. It definitely wasn't as florid and mesmerizing as Luster's author's prose, but that's fitting given how utterly confined the setting was. Lilligold's author milked that setting for all they could, though, and it was gritty and dark and very distressing—exactly what it needed to be.
The plot was another strong point. It was mysterious enough to keep my interest, but offered just enough information that I was never completely lost. I desperately want to know more about this setup. What's with the golems? Who in the world is the villain, and how hasn't he been found? Why doesn't he seem interested in punishing Luster? Seriously, that villain was chilling. He got all of one instance of dialogue in a flashback, and that was enough to be chilling. It was awesome.
I could keep waxing poetic about both of these stories, but I need to wrap this up. In short, both authors did an exemplary job. Once this contest is over, I can't wait to find out who both of you are so I can follow you pronto. Great show!
Lilligold's author
Wow, both of these authors took on some quite ambitious stories this round!
I really liked the first author's take on Lilligold, and even though it differs from how Lilligold's own author portrays her, it fits perfectly with everything on her character sheet. Her characterization was very compelling and the odd structure of the story served that characterization well. The beginning of the the story was hard to follow, though everything was clear on a second read through.
The second author sets the story in a dark, alternative universe, but unlike some of the other attempts in this contest, the setting helped to reveal important aspects of the characters' personalities. I like how the story pits Luster Lock's need for companionship and her fighting spirit against Lilligold's desire to be alone and her broken spirit. The reveal that she had requested solitary confinement was a powerful way of advancing her characterization. Despite the dark nature of the story, it resolves in a way that stays true to the overarching themes of MLP.
This match was close and both are deserving of advancement, but I'm going with Lilligold's story because the pieces fit together more nicely into a coherent tale. The setting helps to highlight the two characters' differing reactions to adversity and gives Luster Lock the opportunity to help Lilligold save herself. In contrast, Luster Lock's story began with Lilligold searching for artistic inspiration (a plot thread that was never really resolved) and ended with Luster Lock deciding to leave home. I didn't really see how those two were connected, thematically.
LUSTER LOCK’S AUTHOR
(Goddamn you both brought your A-game though, be proud!)
What You Love
Liked: Getting to see Luster’s family. :)
Disliked: When they meet, the tone and style of the writing change. I don’t know if this is meant to signal a shift in Lilligold’s mindset or mood (in which case, it’s effective), but I missed the flowerier language and poetic tropes when replaced by the more standard narrative. :B
L-Block
Liked: That someone went super-dark for one of these! Also, great ending!
Disliked: I craved more backstory for what happened to Lilligold. What’s this stallion’s motive? It’s hard to believe someone like that exists in Equestria. Also, why would he keep killing Audrey to torture Lilli when it sounded like he wanted the plant himself?
6238290
All of those questions and more were answered in the original 8,000-word draft! Once the contest is over, I'd love to spruce up and post the original story myself. If Luster's author would allow it, of course. There is one thing I will address, though.
I tried to hint as much as possible that this story doesn't take place in Equestria. It takes place somewhere in the country surrounding Elmshire, which is a decidedly different place that I hope to flesh out in my own stories. Here's the main bit where I tried to distinguish this as happening outside Equestria:
In any case, thank you for the feedback. And thanks for voting!
6238994
Hey, no complaints from me. I didn't think we had to go and say it, but put me down on the record as fine with anyone who wrote a story for a round with Luster posting that story on their main account; I'm probably gonna do the same with theirs, after all. If someone who I wasn't in a round with wants to use Luster, that's another story, and that someone should please talk to me about it first.
Lilligold's Author
Perhaps I was reading it too quickly, but the purpose and decription of the "lock" in Luster Lock's entry eluded me. I also felt that the character interaction in Lilligold's piece was simply far more intense, bringing out the best in both characters considering their extreme situation. I didn't even need a backstory from the villain, the two's interactions together was basically a work of art.
Luster Lock's author
Both brilliant stories.
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Psst! Not to be a bother, but I just wanted to remind you that you haven't cast your vote on this pair yet. It's coming down to the wire, and every vote is going to matter! No pressure, though. If you'd rather abstain on this one, that's totally fine. ♥
Lilligold's Author
One of the things I was really looking forward to was seeing if Lilligold's author could move her outside of a plant-related setting successfully, and I think this one did that quite well. There was enough mystery that I wanted to keep reading to find out what the hell was going on, yet at the end I didn't feel like I'd missed something important.
6239152
6251281
Casting a tiebreaker vote here, finally. Ultimately, I have to say: Lilligold's author.
Christ, this one was hard to call.
So, I really love the characterization for Lilligold put forth by Luster Lock's author. It's inventive and charming and just all around pretty great. Easily the best part of the story, and definitely a character I'd want to see more of. The entry itself is a pretty nice slice-of-lifey thing between Lilligold and eventually Luster Lock. Which I guess leads into my one real criticism. I think every individual bit of this story works in its own right, but taken as a whole overarching plot, it's a rather odd mix of the first half of a Lilligold arc and the second half of a Luster Lock arc.
Lilligold doesn't really get a solid closure on her issues with Gardener's Block (I guess it's sort of implicit, but given how much it takes up of the story's introduction, there's surprisingly little addressed to her at the end). Luster Lock has an intriguing schtick going on with her feelings toward her parents, but there isn't really enough dedicated there for the arc to deliver the punch it needs. I think this story may have been a little too ambitious in its scope. It could have been a really good character work for Lilligold, or it could have been a strong developmental piece for Luster Lock, but it struggles to fully accomplish both within 4k words. I'd almost have suggested to go all the way through with one or the other, but that might've had its own problems with respect to the contest (making one OC more of a bit-parter in the other's story).
Lilligold's author went the other way, both in that it went for tense, adventurey stuff and in that it feels more deliberately designed as snapshot bit in a much larger tale. In a sense, both authors' entries feel like they wanted more room to work with, but the strategy differed in how to approach that problem. Luster Lock's Author seems to have tried to condense a fuller slice-of-life story down to meet a 4k word limit, while Lilligold's author seems to have more blatantly said "This is just part of everything there is for me to tell you."
I don't think either strategy is really inherently better than the other for this contest, but I will say that I have a slight personal preference for the approach Lilligold's author took, mostly because it left me with kind of a feeling of wanting more, as opposed to the other entry leaving me with a feeling that there could have been more. It's kind of hard to put into words. I hope this makes at least some sense.
Anyway, Lilligold's author paints kind of an interesting plot with a mysterious stallion, with Lilligold, Luster Lock, and Trixie I guess being kept as his prisoners. I don't think the characters shine as brightly here as they did in Luster Lock's author's entry, but they're solid nonetheless and bounce well off each other. It works an arc out between Lilligold and Luster Lock, and explores both of their motivations. Lilligold's via the flashbacks with Audrey and Luster Lock's through the dialogue. It all works out to a pretty cool bit, but I think it lacks a few important bits of context, mostly with respect to the mystery antagonist's motives. I think some information on that would have been the critical lynchpin for making this piece stand in its own right, rather than just as a clipping of a bigger story. Ultimately, without that information, the entry sort of asks you to take the circumstances behind the (somewhat dark for MLP's setting) situation on faith so it can spend its time doing everything else. It's not the worst omission, but I do think it hurts the piece a bit as a standalone contest entry.
In the end, I have to hand the tiebreaker on this one to Lilligold's author. Both sides really brought their a-game for this one, and I'm sorry that this round has to see one of you go, but the victory's got to go to somebody. Great job, guys.