Book One in The Rainb0w Mythos
Rainbow Dash hasn't been sleeping well, in fact, she hasn't been sleeping well for the better half of a month now. Tossing and turning at night, sleeping past her alarms, and often waking up exhausted, confused, and with her hooves outstretched as if to reach out for somepony. Thinking she's maybe just exercising too hard she tries to take it easy on herself, that is until a series of unpredictable nightmares bring Rainbow Dash back to a place long forgotten by Equestrian history.
Inspired by the music of Cult of Luna, A Pale Horse Named Death, and the author's own dreams; This is a story about the things we believe in, the things swept away by the passage of time, and the things left behind that are still there waiting for you.
Links:
- If you like this story, consider supporting me on Patreon so I can bring you more content in the future!
- Join the Club Awesome Discord Channel to hang out with Rainb0w!
- Youtube playlist of this story's musical Inspiration
Credits:
Chapter 3:
Made a derivative poem based on the public domain poem "The Night" by Hilaire Belloc
Directly referenced two paragraphs from the Daily Writing Tips article "Telling a good poem from a bad one" because I was having trouble paraphrasing it
Used a couple stanzas of 'Dead of Winter' by A Pale Horse Named Death
chapter 8:
used a quote by William R. Alger
chapter 9:
Sampled a passage from Ozymandias by Bysshe Shelly
Fimfiction Discord writing help:
Majin Syeekon, PocketHenry, figments - line brainstorming
RB, Shipcord, R5h -similie brainstorming
Symphonic sync, the chronicler, - put a conversation we had into chapter 9
Okay, this sounds interesting enough. When I get the time, I am sooooo reading this.
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Please do! I spent the last 5 months working on this story, so I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Well, I'm hooked and there's only one way to get it out.
It's by reading more!
I'm loving it. This story is well written and it's already grabbed my attention within the first few pages. I love stories that make it feel like I'm there watching everything transpire and this is one of those stories. Keep up the great work Dashie, I look forward to more of your work when you decide to release it
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It makes me happy to hear you both like it so far. I hope you both enjoy the entire story!
Well, that was lovely. Every so often, the odd grammar/ technical mistake annoyed me a little, but everything else definitely made up for that.
So, basically, thank you for this. I enjoyed the time I spent reading this, and can't think of something I'd rather have done with said time.
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Yeah, sorry about the grammar, this story was supposed to be edited but my editor kinda left me hanging.
But I'm very glad to hear you enjoyed the story, I worked really hard on it so it makes me feel good to know people are starting to like it!
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Agreed!
Okay, I saw, I read, and I was astounded. Masterful work! Honestly, I think there's only one way to sum up this story, and that's for things to get a little bit... stranger.
Good story!
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Hey thanks, I'm glad you liked it!
Wow what a way to start a story! I got hooked by the first chapter!
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Yeah haha, the first chapter is pretty dope!
Spike, stop breaking the fourth wall. That's Pinkie's job
Right in the feels.......
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I knew somepony would love that line!
As an addict to the "strange dream/vision" hook, I can definitely get behind the first chapter. I think the dream sequence had some pretty fine writing in it, too.
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Hey thanks, I'm glad you like the hook!
Can't wait to see what you think of the rest of the story!
This is a really cool story! I like the way you're writing this! Keep it up! Also the part about you connecting the skeletal foals in the building to sandy shores (was that her name) and rainbow dash dieing together in the bed in the dream was like a woahh moment for me oh my gosh
Not bad at all! A very thrilling mystery. :)
Nice story. I read the physical edition, so some of this might not apply.
I really liked the voices you had for Dash and Gilda. They felt very true to the show, and I enjoyed a lot of the exchanges they had. I also really liked how Rainbow Dash went through all her trauma, and I felt for her when it got scarier and scarier. Twilight felt pretty off for me, especially when she kept being dismissive of Dash's issues and only helped her after she remembered prior details.
I liked a lot of the buildup with the mystery, but unfortunately, the physical edition was so riddled with typos and formatting errors that I had a lot of trouble getting into it, and it brought me out of the experience. If you do another print run, I highly recommend getting another editor to read the proof.
That said, I think you're a good storyteller with a good sense of pacing, and I look forward to more of your stories.
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Hey thanks for the comment!
I know how you feel man, I'm pissed off about the typos in the physical edition as well, I had an editor but he left me hanging when i had hired him on. Told him it was a rush job and offered to pay him a rush fee to get it done in the week before Whinny City and he spent a day at school and another day at playing a game that got an update. I had to get the manuscript made or otherwise I wouldn't have gotten them printed in time and then all the money I spent advertising the physical edition would've gone to waste.
I'm planning a second edition with typo fixes, updated chapters, and maybe even an extra chapter or two and thinking of offering those who bought it a steep discount.
As for Twilight, i need to go back and do a little tweaking to her because some people are getting the wrong impression on her motivations. Same for why Gilda 'just suddenly shows up'. I honed in on what i think is the issue is that I spend so much time building things up and for things like Twilight's pivotal moment or Gilda's reason for being in ponyville I only dedicated a single dialogue tag "I found some treasure we can swipe" for Gilda and "You haven't been a very good friend lately" for Twilight. It's an easy fix but I guess it's something that seemed obvious to me but didn't translate well to the reader.
Other than that I really appreciate you taking the time to read and enjoy my story. I hope you stick around for my future stories because I've got some bangers coming down the pipeline!~
Yikes, that poetry class. Not even upper-level university classes are that hard. I'd have a fit if one of my professors asked me to write in octameter--pentameter is hard enough. Now that's a nightmare.
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luna only wanted the best out of her students
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Thanks for the flashbacks.
Dammit, author-chan! You made me cry!
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I take that as a great honor, especially since chapter 10 almost made me cry while writing it; and I never cry.
For those tracking this story, Dr Wolf and I are doing a dramatic reading collab, here's chapter one:
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I'm very glad to hear about this as being the case. I bought a physical edition of this book as well at Bronycon 2018, and although I loved the pacing, once I delved deeper, I kept seeing typos that were so ridiculously obvious to the eye, I felt a little peeved. (If you remember me in person: I commented that after reading the opening chapter that I thought it was beautiful.) I'm glad to know these typos were not without your own notice. One of the most obvious I saw—that—excuse me for finding hilarious was: "ta;on". I can't remember where exactly I saw it in the physical edition, only that it stuck out to me so much that I couldn't forget. I figured out this was more than likely meant to be the word, "talon", but only after a solid while. I hope that isn't taken too harshly, for overall, in my take-away impression of this story, I believe that it is ten steps away from being a masterpiece.
I will admit, I did you, and myself, a disservice, by not writing down my exact reasoning for this take-way impression with more specific critical details from the moment I thought of them, because for the most part I have since forgotten what I thought of. Holistically, grammar was the second-largest thing that prevented this story from feeling like a masterpiece in the physical edition. Those were the first five steps. The other five steps were the pacing of the last two or three chapters. I will admit I came close to crying. However I'm going to be completely honest, I can't earnestly say I knew whether or not my feeling of slight dissatisfaction towards the end was due to what appeared to be rushed pacing in the conclusion for what felt like such an intense build-up, or whether it was my hasty desire to read the whole book in a single day before I fell asleep and had to work the next morning. (I'm going to assume the later as I didn't take the time to absorb as much as I could have).
Once again, although I apologize that I don't have more specific details by which to construct a compelling argument, I still feel as if the end chapters to this novella were not as climatic as they could have been given a few alterations, seeing as how much time was spent building to the climax of the reveal of Rain Chaser's spirit, his connection to Luna, and subsequent characterization and interaction with everypony else therein, despite how brief a time it was. I very well be in the minority here, or I may have missed something in my tired daze, but I stand by what I say.
So, with that, I'm going to admit that I very well could be wrong. Since I can't guarantee I will come back to reading this story over again (unless persuaded to do so on reasonable grounds), I want to leave you less with criticism and more with praise. I have no currently published stories by which to compare, but by my own inner-judgments I can certainly say that your writing ability sits very well above my own. The conceptual mystery behind Rainbow Dash's nightmares and execution of revealing said mystery using this story's plot was both intense and wonderfully crafted. I left the story feeling enriched by it's contents and very happy that I read it.
If you intend to take whatever other criticism has been offered by others that you deem to truthful and use it to write additional chapters, or adjust the current material with those new ideas, I would be very happy to see it. Heck, I'd even be willing to pay for a second-edition printing of Waiting for You at the same price of original publication even if the only substantial change was that the grammar errors had been entirely eradicated.
With that, I wish you luck, and I want to thank you for writing this novella.
—The After's Scriptor
Not bad at all.
Came across this thanks to doctor wolf's videos on it. I can say that it is a well executed and emotional little tale and i had to come over here and give you your dues for it.
it may be a small drop in the ocean of fanfics that pony has inspired but i think we overlook these smaller stories too often. each story has their worth. either as a practice for greater works or simply for a moment of expression. to capture an emotion or concept we are feeling and use it to create something.
The pony community is entering a sort of cooling phase as it were. It is nigh nine to ten years old. But still people create interesting little bits here and there. But i know that as the fandom cools and cements itself into entertainment history, the drive to create more will and has cooled as well... I wish i could overcome my indecision years ago and contribute to it. but regardless of that, you have. And i congratulate you on adding your bit to pony history.
I suppose I have you to thank for getting me on to FimFiction, as seeing Dr. Wolf feature this story is how I came and stayed. Greatly enjoyed the story!
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Hey glad to hear it! I hope you enjoy your stay at fimficiton as well as the rest of the stories I plan to put out!
this is interesting
Huh, that's an interesting way to start. I have to say, you do a lot better of a job with description than I do. It really helps put the reader into the scene. Not much has happened just yet, so not much to comment on. I'm curious to see where this goes.
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It's a slow burn, it'll get you soon enough 😘
I almost want to say that's the Castle of the Two Sisters in the dream. That makes the most logical sense to me, considering the forest sounded like the Everfree. Or maybe I'm totally off base and there's more than one evil forest and castle. Who knows.
I enjoyed the interaction with Twilight and Dash too. As a side note, it feels like Dash might have been too open about the dreams at first, but it's not a big deal. It just meant Twi would have needed to prod a little more, and the end result would have been the same. Moving on!
This leaves me with several questions that I probably don't want to know the answers to
All that said, this is getting interesting. I was half right on the location. It *was* still the Everfree. Just not the building I was thinking of. The mystery deepens!
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Not going to lie, that was my favorite line to write haha
Man, Gilda, really putting her talon in her mouth there. That said, that seems like something she would do, so excellent work there.
Dang, I really struggle with making something like walking through a forest interesting. Yet you make it look so easy.
I'm not sure why this is marked as a tragedy. So far it's been an enthralling mystery. I bet I'm solidly putting my foot in my mouth there, but I guess we'll see.
I've always liked the "solving mystery via dreams" trope, and it seems that hasn't changed.
Man, I was getting haunted house vibes from that whole thing. Dammit. Now I've got to find out what's going on, or it's going to bug me. Hook, line, and sinker.
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Told you it was a slow burn, I gotcha now~!
Okay, Many curveballs just got thrown at me. Like a pony x griffon war. I suppose I could see that just from their past demeanor in the show alone. Also, I'm guessing that whatever pony RD is seeing isn't her, but a survivor of whatever this event was. As to why she's seeing what she is, I guess I gotta keep reading for that. As for the Gilda revelation, I doubt it's actually her. Probably a descendent.
though of course, nothing was more glorious than the following line.
Was so out of left-field it caught me off guard and I died
I have another theory. Because the timeline doesn't make sense here.
There's a war, and it leads to these foals getting chased away to where they freeze to death in the same building that Luna apparently head class. Yet we see those same two ponies in an earlier flashback. If they were the same ponies, they couldn't be taking lessons AND freezing to death in the same place. So perhaps RD is just interpreting these memories through ponies that she knows. That would explain the notFluttershy and the notGilda.
I guess I'll see. But you have me theorycrafting now.
And I was more or less completely wrong. Alright so something happened and Luna left, and now there's just ghosts left behind. Okay, so if I knew I had this to expect, I wouldn't have been so reluctant to try this story. This is a sad ghost story, but I'm into those. At least RD and Twi are okay.
FFFFFFFFFFFF
Excuse me while I spend the next hour wallowing in these unauthorized FEELINGS.
So everything was explained here. I was getting close to the mark with my theories, but ultimately never quite made it. But I suppose that's the draw of a good mystery.
I'm glad I gave this one a chance. I'll be leaving it a like for sure!