There were no records. There was nopony left to say. There was no way to tell how long it had been since Chaos had taken the throne.
The sun set by His whim. The moon rose at His leisure. The earth itself could upturn in a second and transform into a swarm of bees; only if the bees weren't made of chocolate or the ground hadn't been upside down in the first place.
It could always be worse. The bees could explode, and sometimes they did.
That was only the world outside, though. That was only what lay outside of the safe, quiet forest where they lived.
But why would Celestia and Luna know about any of that, when their parents wouldn't ever let them leave?
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Yeah, I dunno really where this one came from. I was just taking notes on some various pony things and some not-so-various story things, and I just kinda... got struck by some of the ideas I was having.
So, I put fingers to keyboard, and what you're about to read is what came out.
So, um... enjoy? I kinda like it, and I kinda want to make it a long-term thing. Hopefully I won't lose passion and abandon it like the others hahahahahahahahahaha
This story's more about the time period rather than the big bad chaos Himself, so, there's the premise. You're probably also gonna see my bent towards Luna, which I can't really help. Stick with me?
Warnings are redundant for now, but probably won't be someday. Tagged for safety, I guess. is that wrong i'm sorry
I stole the cover image from a guy named dimfann, I'm sorryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
I ' m r e a d i n g i t
Alright, that was cute.
Coverart sauce: https://twitter.com/DimFann/status/1462635183891308551 (SFW)
Well, this is certainly a very...stylistically written story. I've always thought that I put too much detail into my stories, but this makes mine look outright bland. I wouldn't necessarily consider that to be a bad thing, but there needs to be a suitable level of substance for all that style as well. If you're planning on making this the intro to a much longer work, then I guess you could justify this as a "slow burn", but as it is, I feel like I just read a 6k word story that could have easily been half as long while still conveying the same information. Even that information that was conveyed was a bit of a mixed bag, with some well-thought-out, interesting elements, and some that felt very odd. If this is all just your style, then you certainly did it well, and I can't really complain too much about that, but this sort of thing just never clicks with me.
P.S. Chill out with the oh-so-clever hyphenated descriptors; you have way too many of them.
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Ah, you must be new around these parts! These parts, of course, being the trash can where I live and peddle my horsewords to the abject disgust and slight pity of those who skirt around me.
Yeah, so, it's actually really funny that you say this story seems a slow burn that's bloated with detail, because I actually reeled myself in really hard for this. If I'd been writing at peak time wasting efficiency, this would be a 15k word story with about the same level of plot progression, and about seven hundred more random threads to devices that I'll forget by the time of relevance.
My schtick is- as you are probably aware and disgusted by- writing really stupidly inconclusive and artsy adjacent works populated by masses of empty descriptors and occasionally punctuated by flashes of action or character interaction. It is my very infrequent passion to indulge my sense of meandering drama, and my incredible ability to look up synonyms.
As you said, and as everything I write is: this is a slow burn. I thrive on spreading chapters thinly out to an incredibly unsatisfying degree, no matter how much people beg for something to just happen already. I simply laugh, while hiding tears, and proclaim that 'this is my process.' And lo: the masses voices' ring out again, in sorrow.
Oh, and as for the cleverly-hyphenated-strings: I know they're not correct. I had started out with a few in the first chapter for practice purposes, and to make Celestia a little more distinct from my normal pony's pov, but then I started to really dig it for her character. It's about the enunciation, and the promptness of her words, you know? When she speaks or thinks in strings-too-close-for-comfort, it's because she's doing it quickly, with a sense of heightened priority.
She's an intelligent and reasonable little filly, of course, but she's also fairly entitled and just a bit stuck up. She believes that when she speaks, she's speaking matter-of-factly. She's saying things that, while of course subject to argument, are just a teensy bit more important-than-important. Imagine her cocking her head to each word, if it helps.
The bigger sister wants her big-but-still-small opinions taken seriously. And sometimes, when you have a tiny-blue-filly-sister that enjoys shouting over you, you have to speak faster-than-fast.
So, yeah, it's not correct. It may not even look good, but I enjoy it for the character. It's- er... nuance, yeah?
Does Discord ever appear in this story?
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Er- well, one day?
He will be the central antagonist, but, uh... well, Celestia and Luna haven't ever even left their woods, at this point. And they're just fillies.
It may be in flavor for Discord to randomly pop up and probably ruin the lives of two nopony kids, but we're still in the worldbuilding stage, here. Drama and intrigue and witness to horrible, life-altering events that cause pledges to topple tyrants will happen, but not before we get attached to the characters and the world.
I don't always promise things that don't happen!
O dear, that's not good. And a strange stranger told to not come back, but will they listen?
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Well, it seems alright for now, doesn't it? There's a tentative peace, and Luna looks alright.
Poor Celestia, though. Wrung out and strained to the breaking point, and then some stranger like she'd never seen with magic so horrible. It makes sense why she'd tell them not to come back, even if they'd saved her sister.
Awful convenient timing, though. Wonder what brought them there?
I hope they were consummate.
Well... I think that explains a few things
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I imagine there must have been many questions leading up to this. My intent with the final few scenes was, in essence, to take all of those questions, throw them right in the garbage, and replace them with entirely new questions to dither upon while the story's on hiatus!
Maybe not directly into the garbage; I think some questions will deserve a good ol' revisiting one day, but that day's not soon!
Thanks for commenting; you were pretty much the only person who left more than one in this extended prologue to the larger story I'll one day be writing. If it weren't for the exact thought that at least someone was reading this schlock, I probably would've put far less effort into it all.
See you on the flipside!