Crystal Skies was to be married and then wasn’t. Now he’s got blood on his sharp feathers. Forced to move to Baltimare while the incident cools down, he learns stuff about himself he didn't know: who he is, what's love, who he loves, and where friendship begins and ends, amongst other things. He gets involved with gangsters. Intimately. Not as strange as it might seem, considering his fiancée’s Family background.
This is a standalone novella that incidentally takes place in the Enforcerverse. It features Starlight Glimmer in a supporting role as Grimoire, many years before the Our Town incident. Having read The Runaway Bodyguard will provide minor spoilers.
This story was written as an entry for the M/M Shipping Contest 2021.
About warning tags: Unmistakable innuendo, strong allusion, flirting, plumage. Gangsters, blood on feathers, an incidence of Prench cursing, etc...
The main cover art, and the alternate cover in chapter 4, is by Syrupyyy, an amazing artist. The lettering is mine. Visit Syrupyy on twitter at: https://twitter.com/SyrupyyyArt
A super big shout out to my pre-reader Javarod. He made a snide comment in The Runaway Bodyguard on the “Hay is for breakfast” line that intersects both stories (chapter 14 in this work, chapter 51 in that work). That one comment was the genesis of this story. If you like this story (and please, up vote it), be sure to thank him, too!
Then why will reading The Runaway Bodyguard will provide minor spoilers?
thank you for your entry into the contest! looking forward to reading and judging it once it is done!
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Thank you for running the contest, The story really wanted to be written, or rather the characters insisted. It gave me further excuse to write it.
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The stories intersect, and where they do, it is from a different POV. If you read both, you will understand why people say two witnesses to the same event never report the same thing.
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Thanks for your comment. I'm a firm believer in that the reader's imagination is much better than anything I can write about certain interpersonal relations. I skirt the line. It is a story of people dealing with tough situations and self-identity, which is universal regardless of gender (or species). That said, I love word play and innuendo, which is the scaffold for the comedy in the story. You'll see a lot of that.
Howdy, hi!
You have been successfully entered into the MxM contest! Thank you very much for your participation and we look forward to reading!
hah, that is fun! as well as the idea of the Princesses's image being something to be parodied in low-culture expressions like this
well, that is certainly forward
it's a nicely drawn depiction of a grittier city so far. and certainly an OC type i have not read before, a martial arts devotee with blade-wings. let's see where this goes
well, now we have the backstory, putting together all the unexplained details in the previous chapter. i take it "Salerno" is the Italy expy, though maybe i'm missing something with their "coltish" fashion for mares. also, i am definitely getting intrigued by this "Ma'am" character!
well this is making me hungry, so good job there!
ah, yeah, the word "mule" would have an ambiguous meaning in Equestria. fun!
well, since i know what the A/N says above, this is very intriguing!
well, not where i was expecting this to go!
oh, hey, learned something today
well, committing dangerous crimes is certainly an awkward situation to be doing some self-discovery
that was certainly an unexpectedly sexually tinged set of intrigues by Grimoire. but hey, it worked! and a fun use of magical mechanics between the communication gum and Grimoire's invisibility spell.
ah, classic use of preening as a way to escalate the intimacy.
it is a fun phrase. and what a fantastic big city date! ah, i miss doing that kind of thing. though mine never ended with such mysterious menacing missives
well, that makes some of the previous events retroactively even weirder!
nice, called it (though i guess the clues were pretty thick)
dang, so much intrigue!
this is some fun cultural worldbuilding
aww, well that's quite a recontextualization for Crystal Skies to digest! and i am really liking this Daylily
well, that was quite a ride! though it did work well enough in the end as a standalone, it also definitely felt like a side story in a larger universe that would work better for being familiar with it. it was an interesting experience, really giving me the vibe of mid-century pulp fiction. i want to say The Destroyer, but i never actually read that series, just a fanfic in another fandom that had a crossover with it. i see what you did now, with the main character's backstory hinted at, then his own perspective on it given, then it becoming relevant to being able to navigate the criminal underground he finds himself in, and then finally that backstory being recontextualized after his journey back home. the reveal that everyone knew Crystal Skies liked stallions except for Crystal Skies was a fun one, and not a plotline i see intersected with this kind of story very often, so that was a neat experience. thank you for it!
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Thank you for the kind comments. I always like it when readers point out what interested them, what touched them, and report what they read in their own words. It is a reflection of my thoughts through the mirror of your mind. It is through your gift that authors learn how effectively they are communicating, and sometimes whether that matters in the face of reader wonderment.
I cannot help but agree with your accessment that knowing the main story would enhance this story. I do hope having read this one will do the same for some adventurous readers who might be intrigued by The Runaway Bodyguard! If I’d not interwoven characters between stories, I’d probably have abbreviated the Princess Grim fight and expanded Crys and Pig Pen’s involvement in the attempt to assassinate Grimoire, probably bringing in a Salernitano connection that would have directly frightened Crys. Still, I like the feel that for all their ego sometimes characters are subsidiary to the events around them... kind of like in real life.
Salerno is in Italy, and there’s a fairly well known breed of horse from there, the Salernitano. There is a Sicilian breed, but I gather it is more insular, and it didn’t ponify well. There is a Impressionist painter reference/ponification that I got in with the same word in the main novel, so I ran with it. In any case, the mob was all over Italy.
Thank you. She is a shadow secondary character in most of the chapters living within Crys’ memories. You’d probably pick her out clearly on a second read. Daylily’s character proved so compelling, and her love for Crys so strong, that I’ve started writing some of their story as teenagers prompted by these two sentences
—with this story’s revelations never stated but nonetheless affecting the story.
I am hoping one day the artist, Syrupyyy, who did the cover art will return to fan art and draw me the picture of Daylily we agreed upon just before she had to take a hiatus.
I am channeling my inner Tarantino, using the meal-experience all people share to explore character. I glad you found it delicious.
Then I deduced the person running the contest was likely a French (Prench) speaker. I was mortified. Actually, I deduced that when I’d finished the French in the last chapter before I published it. I published it anyway, hoping I didn’t embarrass myself too badly. (I use Argentine dialectal Spanish in The Runaway Bodyguard, but I’m married to an Argentine). The same phrase occurs in English; I use it often. I’m endeavoring to use the French one, however, as it has a certain Je ne sais quoi that feels SFW.
That's a very interesting detail!