Spike's a young man who works at the local library. Twilight's the parrot-sized dragon who lives on top of the bookcase in his apartment.
Twilight's made it quite clear that she'd rather not talk about where she came from, so Spike doesn't ask anymore. But when five dimes from Twilight's hoard disappear, Spike and Twilight will have to confront her past in order to save their present and the whole world's future.
This is not an entry in Choices: A Species Swap Contest. It's actually an original short story I had published in a couple places nearly 30 years ago. But since I've been taking some of my pony stories, changing the pony stuff into non-pony stuff, and submitting them to the various SF magazines, I got to thinking: would it be possible to turn a non-pony story into a pony story?
Then I saw some entries for the abovementioned contest being posted and realized that the idea of a "species swap" was just what I was looking for. So let's see if it works!
And now it's got a reading on YouTube by Skijarama!
Yup, it works!
I can still tell from how the story's structured that it's originally another story converted into this present state, and there's still a few minor typos (cases of Spike being referred to as "she" instead of "he" in the latter half of the tale) but neither of these bring the tale down. It was a very engaging and enjoyable read, reminding me of the many young adult chapter books I read in my preteens, so it also gives me a pleasant dose of nostalgia for my youth on top of everything else.
I think my one and only criticism is that exactly what happens at the moment of Torch's defeat feels slightly nebulous, as is Gilda's end fate, but this is a pretty minor thing considering the reader still knows full well they're defeated, the more important detail to walk away from here.
I'll have to see if I can find the time to read the original story now, as my curiosity's been piqued. I suspect Mr. Dozois might've had a point with his bit of advice...but I can see how the story still works either way.
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Ding-dang it!
I was sure I'd caught all those! 'Cause, yeah, there are several gender swaps, too, from the original. I'll give it another combing through and see if I can find 'em...
Thanks, though!
Mike
That was a great story!
I was kind of hoping Gilda would end up as Rarity's less-than-enthusiastic pet at the end after all.
Hmm, definitely an interesting story (especially since I get a sort of feeling of when I read Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher way back, as well as a definite feeling of old sci fi/fantasy short stories in general), but it felt a little clunky. I feel like swapping Twilight and Spike's roles from the show just didn't really do anything here for the story and makes it a little harder mentally to deal with; I suppose Lavender Scales in particular was an inspiration here? Anyways, the clunkiest part has got to be the climax, since it seemed to drag on early and then go too fast-paced late, and it was very odd to me that Twilight's dragonfire would be the way to end things, since Torch should be immune and it would've played out more simply to not have Rarity interrupt Twilight eating Gilda and instead just help subdue Torch.
Ooh, cool! Twilight makes a cute lil dragon.
Well, it certainly makes for a nicer story that, apparently, Rarity was actually into Spike before knowing anything about his dragon or the hoard. Otherwise, one might get the sneaking suspicion that she had decided to get close to him simply so she could steal those dimes from his apartment and was just using him all along.
...In which case, Twilight probably would've let Torch eat her and use the distraction to do what needed to be done.
Twilight is just the cuutest dragon! I like seeing how their personalities shine through, even as their rolls are reversed.
I've read your original somewhere, and this rewrite works as well for different reasons. It's a nice little story :)
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Thanks, folks!
I should probably take the opportunity to plug my book of short stories which is probably where Cerulean Blue read the original version. Available for Kindle or on actual paper, it's got 22 of my previously published short stories from the past 30 years. So many words!
Mike
Hrm.
I decided to read the original version before reading this and -
yeah, the original had some massive whiplash.
glad this one has a happier ending
The only thing I've got to complain about is pacing. It's nice and crisp right up to Paradise Estates with character introductions and personalities in the scenes...and then it starts speeding up to the point where the characters and scenes seem a bit blurred.
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This sort of story structure:
Was one I used a lot 30 years ago--the original version of this was, I think, the 4th story I ever sold for actual money--and one that I still use a lot, now that I think about it. I always picture it as taking the first part of the story to stand the various plot and character dominoes up on end, then having an incident at the midpoint that flicks the first domino over, then the rest of the story rides the whole crashing structure out to the end where you then turn back for a line or a paragraph or so to look back at the pattern that resulted.
So, yeah. Pacing.
Mike
Honestly, I think this works better as a non pony related story, mostly because the characters don't really feel like they do in MLP. But that's just my two cents.