One Hundred Ponies of Tambelon

by Tartarusbound

Chapter 100

The land of Equestria was a land of great magic and grand opportunity.

From Manehattan to Applewood, from Canterlot to Neighagra Falls, it seemed that every town was filled in the endless bustle of activity. Destinies were discovered, true love was realized, and life went on as life is wont to do.

In one small community, however, things were different.

Resting under a mountain range, hiding beyond a maze of volcanic glass, the ponies of ancient Tambelon dreamt sweet dreems of freedom and wellness, of friends and love.

One day, they might realize their dreams

Until that day, they rest.

Author's Note:

Wow. You actually read all of that? In that case, you probably deserve some sort of author's note. In fact, this will probably be longer than the "chapter" itself.

To be clear, I know that this story has an abundance of issues. It's "flow" is a stuttering, jarring gait, it rushes through moments that really shouldn't be rushed as it rushes through everything, and the story probably could have worked better as a "full story" in place of this exercise.

With all of that said, I think that this was a decent experiment. I frequently see stories where a chapter with 10k or even 20k words is used to follow a small group of well-established characters doing a couple of relatively simple actions. Some people have mastered the art of adding context and depth to otherwise simple actions.

I think of myself as a pretty cerebral writer myself, though not in the good way. I spend too much time worrying about and explaining motivations and other internal processes instead of having things happen in stories. This was my attempt to break myself out of this habit, to focus on how large of a scope I could create in a limited space without ruining everything.

While I can understand why this sort of thing isn't done more frequently, I hope some people can appreciate it as an interesting experiment.

Comments

[Tartarusbound]

Before anyone else points out the obvious, I thought that I should put this out there: the word count feature on FiMFiction apparently functions differently from that on Microsoft Word. If you see a chapter noted as being over 100 words, I invite you to count for yourself. Unless my word document is broken, however, most of those records of >100 words are not accurate.

Also, feel free to let me know if I left in any "Blahs". It's a long story.

[Unimpressive Chaos Lord]

I´ll check this one out later. Seems interesting.

[paul]

Why were they put to sleep in the end?
What was the reason?

[jm0914]

Before I read this...

Tambelon. Does that mean a certain demonic ram makes an appearance?

[Tartarusbound]

6498768 Quite possible, my friend... though perhaps not as originally envisioned.

6498619 While the ponies of Tambelon aren't transforming any time soon, the implication was meant to be that they are still infected by some manner of horrible disease (hence their blackening blood and such). While the bell can help slow down diseases, the spell effectively put them in stasis until a true cure can be devised.

[paul]

6498800
Thanks for the explanation.
And thank you for the story, even as experiment - it is quite nice anyway :)