She was hurtling through a vortex of electricity and light. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, but it carried the same sense of disorientation as it always had. The lightning prickled at her fur, making her giggle as the tunnel opened up and deposited her at her destination.
“Ooh, tingly.”
She rubbed her antennae as the static electricity crackled around them, before turning to address her tail as well, waving it around as she twirled in place. She had always enjoyed this form—something about it felt more connected to her roots. Looking around, she found herself to be in a courtyard, adjacent to a castle.
“Halt! Who goes there?!”
Grace turned to see a winged white horse in gold-plated armor galloping over to her.
“Oh, hello Mr. Pegasus Horse, sir. My name’s Grace and—”
“Who are you, and what are you doing in the Canterlot Gardens?”
“Well, my name’s Grace, and...” Grace scratched her head for a moment and gazed upward. “Well, I’m not really sure what I’m doing here. I don’t even know where this ‘Canterlot’ place is. Where exactly are we?” she asked, turning back to the guard.
“You are in the royal courtyard, just outside of Canterlot Castle.”
Grace’s eyes became all sparkly and her mouth opened wide in a big smile. “A castle! You mean, like, for a princess? Oh this is so cool. Where is she?”
The guard motioned to his right. “She’s right over—Wait, hey! No, I’m not letting you see the princess!” His eyes narrowed as he turned back toward her. Grace's smile vanished, her lips drawing tightly together as she leaned away from the horse's accusing glare.
“What are you, exactly?" the horse said. "Clearly you are not equine."
Grace's smile returned at the mention of her appearance. “Ooh, would you like me to look like a horse? I could do that.”
The horse became even paler. “I—What?!”
Her antennae melting back into the rest of her head, Grace began to morph into a horse. Her bushy tail from earlier returned, and her hands and feet became hooves at the end of far more horse-like legs. Dropping onto all fours, she addressed pegasus, mare to stallion. “Hi.”
“What in Celestia’s mane are you?” he exclaimed, shivering as beads of sweat rolled down the side of his face.
Grace looked up, as if trying to see the fuzzy brown horn now protruding from her forehead. “Well, technically, I’m what’s called a seyunolu.”
“And just what in the hay is that?” The pegasus took a step backward.
“Just a human–uryuom hybrid, with some lespuko DNA mixed in as well.” Grace squeed.
“What the buck is a uryuom?!” The pegasus was now slowly retreating.
“Shapeshifters.” Grace shrugged.
“And t-the les—whatever thingy?” His voice faltered as his wings proceeded to pin themselves to his side.
Grace put a hoof to her chin. “The lespuko? A super powerful alien race with incredible magical abilities.”
The white winged horse froze. “I— you—” He tried to give her a stern look, but Grace could hear his armor rattling as he stood there. Whatever he had been trying to say, however, was silenced by the appearance of an even larger and much more majestic-looking pegasus. Upon closer inspection, Grace noticed that this one was also a unicorn.
"Quiver, what's going on over here?" said the large white unicorn pegasus, with a soft but firm voice. The guard still nearly jumped out of his fur.
"Wha—oh, it’s you, princess.” He gathered himself to gether and stood up taller. “We have an intruder, Your Highness," the guard tried again. "This—this creature just appeared out of nowhere and asked to see you. It could be dangerous, Princess. We should send it away."
The taller one eyed Grace for a moment, before looking back to the guard. "No, that's quite alright, Quiver. I'm actually very interested to learn how she got here."
"But, Your Majesty—"
"It's alright, Quiver. I think I'll be perfectly fine. I am Princess Celestia after all, am I not?" She stared at the guard for a moment.
"Of—of course, Princess," Quiver replied, stuttering a little.
Celestia turned to Grace, then nodded her head in the other direction, and followed the motion with one of her wings."Why don't you tell us, Miss... "
"Grace!" Grace answered.
"Miss Grace." The unicorn nodded, and began walking toward the castle.
~ ~ ~
“So then he shot me with the gun, and that’s how I ended up here.”
Celestia turned to look at the guard. He lifted his wings momentarily in response, and she returned her gaze to the dark brown unicorn standing next to him.
“And, what is your name again?”
“Um, Grace, your majesty,” the unicorn replied, scratching at one of her hooves with the other.
“And you are a... what, exactly?”
“A seyunolu. I’m a human-lespuko hybrid.” The unicorn’s mane then sprouted two very thick tufts of hair, which she proceeded to wave around like antennae. “See?”
“I do.” Celestia smiled.
“Oh, and, um... squirrel, your majesty,” Grace added.
“Squirrel?!” the guard exclaimed.
Celestia ignored him. “Well, Grace, there’s really no need to be so formal. You can just call me Tia, if you’d like,” she added, walking over to where Grace stood.
Grace laughed. “Do you drink a lot of it?”
Tia blinked. “I’m... sorry?”
“Tea,” Grace replied. “You asked me to call you ‘Tea’. You must drink it a lot if everyone calls you that.”
Celestia thought about it for a moment, then let out a chuckle. “You know, I think I might know somepony you would get along with very well. You said you were stuck here, and you don’t know how to get home?” she asked, walking over to her balcony.
“That’s correct, Tia,” Grace replied, nodding fervently.
“Excellent,” replied Celestia, turning back toward Grace. “Quiver, see Grace to the train, please. Next stop: Ponyville.”
“Of—of course, your majesty,” the guard replied with a quick salute, before turning on his hoof and exiting the room.
When they were gone, Celestia let out the breath she’d been holding.
“Whew, at last. I thought I’d never get them out of here.” She trotted back up toward her throne and knelt down. “Thank goodness she has no clue who I am. And a lespuko, no less.” She rubbed her head with her hoof, before lying down to take a rest. “Oh well, she’s out of my hair now.” She laid her head down and closed her eyes.
“Tia!” a familiar voice called from just around the corner.
Oh, no. She had forgotten.
“Sister, we seek your counsel at once.”
Luna.
Just a word of advice, from one Goon to another--the cover looks kind of bad. You might just want to go with Grace Pony on a pure white background. Also, I suggest clarifying what the crossover is somewhere in the description.
1383903
Thanks. I couldn't find any other images for a pony Grace, so I took that one and hacked it together best I could in GIMP, while I wait on a commission.
On a different note: I hope you had as much fun reading as I did writing it.
Well, I didn't actually read it. I ain't a huge fan of crossovers. But heck, I'll give it a shot. During my upcoming fanfic marathon.
EGS + MLP?
YES!
You have captured my interest. Please be gentle to it and feed it regularly.
What's EGS?
I think Grace just broke that guard in record time MOAR!!
1384568
El Goonish Shive, a webcomic.
The art starts off a little rough, but it improves dramatically, and the stories are quite good.
The character Grace is from there.
1384567 Yeah, same here. XD I'm like 'Wait wat? Wat? HWAT? Only a prologue so far, and I'm already tracking/upthumbing this, and watching the author. :P
1384568
EGS is one of the most awesome webcomics out there, it has been going strong since 2002.
Basically it is a story about 6 teenagers one of them being an alien-alien-human-squirrel hybrid known as Grace Sciuridae, that can morph into practically anything. This picture is from when she became a fan of My little ponies show
I found another unicorn who's part squirrel! Squeeee!
I have favored your story but you better not disappoint, it is a heavy burden to make any crossover good, and this is egs we are talking about
To boldly go where...11 people have already gone before!
i.imgur.com/KPiY5.jpg
this is how all ponys must die
1384568
The dirtiest squeaky-clean webcomic in history.
1385346
i.imgur.com/OH6vk.png
1385278
I'll do my best. I've got the whole storyline planned, but it's filling in the details and the jokes that I've never been good at. Then again I'm letting Grace tell me what to write so... Here's hoping.
1385923 For the record, it was the 11 that commented before me. I haven't seen anything like this before, unless you count the EGS sketchbooks.
Also Dan (the webcomic's author) made one of my favorite Derpy pictures ever.
My only complaint is Grace seems a little dumb here. She's a genius, and I think has a photographic memory. She's really naieve, and there is tons she doesn't know but anything she does know she has no problem with.
That said you did get her cheerful attitude just right, as well as her ability to accept weridness without batting an eye down perfect.
1385497
Baby, I was born this way.
On that note, do they normally put down horses like this, sorta like gas-chambering dogs and cats? I kinda sorta don't know a thing about horses.
Glad to see this fic doing well, Raindrops! Even though I have no idea what it's about.
1385497
If you hate the show, why did you bother making an account?
What is your problem?
1386433 The funny thing is, he joined a week ago, and is already banned.
1386475
You can GET banned on this site?
I've never heard of it before.
Which, of course, makes it all the more sad that he WAS.
1386502 encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRGAQyQukJUZjdFQme1ShpK8LXOLd7MnXojprWGMUJ6ZsY2K8mKTA
1386511
Clueless.
1386530 M'kay.
1386535
But what is that all about then, since you say i'm clueless? I honestly have no idea.
1386539 It'sa meme, an' it was appropriate fer th' situation, so I decided to, ya know, use it! I never really meant t' call ya clueless; I swear on m' good name!
1386544
I'm not offended, but since you said it was appropriate for the situation, there must then be something i'm clueless about.
(Let's have these comments in PM's from now on so we don't clutter this poor dude's notifications box with comments on a story when the comments are not relevant to it)
1386557 M'kay.
1385497 actually, i worked at a vet office this summer. they are injected with something (i was just a volunteer, so i don't exactly know) and they just start falling.... asleep.... with no.... pain......
so there you go!
1385938
Oh, okay. whew.
1385938
Thanks for pointing that out. I was kinda going off of the fact that she was very very sheltered, as was be restated by yesterday's comic, so she probably wouldn't know what a pony or a unicorn was.
I like the concept, but your story seems a bit rushed as of right now. I would suggest finding a good pre-reader who is also a fan of EGS and can provide second opinions on Grace's reactions. (Grace may be sheltered, but she's smart. She should've known the guard was a pegasus as soon as she saw him and she shouldn't be having trouble pronouncing "seyunolu" in her talk with the guard. She knows what she is.)
I am a bit...(dictionary! What is this I'm feeling? Tell me!)... put off (The dictionary failed me) by Grace's exchange with the guard. In my opinion, I felt he did not react the way a guard should have reacted to a possible threat. From his point of view, a strange bipedal creature just appeared in the middle of the castle grounds out of thin air. Furthermore, the creature can shape-shift. If this takes place after the season two finale, that alone should have been setting off warning bells in his head and having him call for back-up.
He sees all this and what does he decide to do?
"Come on into the castle, Strange, shape-shifting Not-Pony. I'm gonna let be in the same room as our country's beloved ruler."
I can understand wanting to move Grace along quickly to Ponyville, where I assume you plan on having most of the story take place, but the exchange with the guard is just... an awkward way to go about it. I know you're going for Comedy, but it's okay to still have moments when characters don't act silly or make choices that would make no sense outside of a comedy setting. I feel that scene would have gone much smoother had Celestia been in the garden to begin with. The guard could still easily be in the scene too, showing up to in an attempt to protect the princess from the possible threat, and then being told to back the buck down, because Celestia, as wise and as kind as she is, can see Grace means no harm. The scene could then continue as you had it, with Grace explaining what she is and how she got there.
You do have a very excellent funny moment that I felt stayed true to Grace's character.
That! That right there works. That's funny
Now granted, it's a small moment of funny, but it's a moment of funny that comes off naturally.
Hmm... I could say more, but I feel if I do say more it would suddenly become less "This part could use some polish and here's a suggestion on how you could do it.", and more, "No. No. Like this. *takes keyboard from you*" And I'm the last one who should be doing that because I haven't a fic to my name. (I guess this means you should be taking my advice with a grain of salt.)
I know I sound harsh, perhaps even a little rude, but I certainly don't mean to be. I had a theatre teacher in high school who encouraged us to pick apart each other's performances to the smallest detail.
Now...
Do I think the story would benefit from some polish? Yes.
Do I still like the story despite my nit-picky review? Absolutely. I await the next chapter. (SO I CAN TEAR IT APART TOO!!! *Cackles evilly*) (just kidding)
Did I write a lot more than I meant to write when I first wanted to leave a comment? Sigh, Yes...
I now close this comment (finally) with a Classic EGS question.
"What did Tedd do now???"
1389652
Harsh? Rude? What are these words you speak? You've obviously never had a story of yours ripped to pieces, fed to the shredder, and handed back to you in a pile of lint by the great NickNack. That guy was brutal, you're a kitten compared to him. Still, though, kittens can be quite painful if they attempt to use your leg as a ladder.
Anyway, as you may have guessed, comedy's not really my strong suit. If you'll pardon my crazy for a moment, Grace told me to do it. The same way Pinkie Pie got me to watch ponies via a dream I had, Grace kinda convinced me that I should write this, because [redacted, I will not spoil the upcoming plot].
To get to the point: Thank you. Your advice is most welcome, aside from desperately needed. I was mostly having fun on this one, though, and focused more on putting words to metaphorical paper than making it coherent. I'll see what I can do to clean up the scene in question, and, please do point out any other errors you may or may not notice during your perusal of my mindless scribblings, will you?
As for Grace's smartness, I remind you of the mopping incident. though you do have a very good point. Now then, I must write, for the gods of curling demand it!
Okay, lame joke, but um... what is that, some kind of demonic duck? *hides quickly*
Can you tell me what crossover this is specifically? I searched up EGS but I got a gaming company and recipies. :I
1647712
El Goonish Shive
kinda a rough start, but it has potential.
EGS crossover where have you been all my
lifetime on fimfic! *commences reading at once*