28: What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing?
What's so amazing that keeps us star gazing?
Chapter published 31st Jan 2013
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As the day drew to a close and the sun once again slowly but surely made its way towards its rendezvous with the horizon, two figures sat on a small grassy hill just outside of Ponyville, watching contentedly what was once again turning out to be one of Princess Celestia’s finest sunsets.
Rainbow Dash sat quietly for once, wings furled against her sides as she leant against her lover, while Lero had a strong arm draped across his wife’s shoulders, the finger of one hand idly rubbing against the tip of one of her ears. The pegasus had slumped sideways, allowing much of her weight to fall against the human’s chest, her head resting against his neck as he let his cheek rest atop her forehead.
Over the last couple of years this hill had become one of their favourite spots for just sitting and watching the world go by. Sometimes they would come alone, sometimes with friends, sometimes in sadness, sometimes in joy. Often they would be joined by members of the Apple family, as was only fair, the small ring of logs around a now empty fire-pit, as well as its associated hill on which they sat, was technically part of Sweet Apple Acres after all.
Both pony and human were hoping that the morning would take its time to come. The pegasus had to report back to Wonderbolts’ Academy early the next morning and, except for a short leave of absence in order to visit with her herd for the last two days, they hadn’t seen each other for the better part of a month.
The results of Rainbow’s aptitude tests and various physical try-outs over the last year had allowed her to move straight into officer training, which was something she was quite rightly proud of. The only downside was that it put her in all of the advanced courses, meaning not only would her training period be much longer than that of the normal inductees, she also had to spend much of it living in barracks with very little in the way of leave.
Even though the Pegasus was kept occupied with her training morning, noon and night - and the human’s many jobs plus his two other wives kept him just as distracted - it was the first time in the years since they had started their relationship that they were faced with spending more than a few days at a time apart and neither was enjoying the enforced separation. Both would have to admit though, the time apart had made seeing each other again all the sweeter… and sweatier.
After a lengthy silence, the kind of comfortable silence so often displayed between true friends and soul mates, and these two were blessed with being both, the human finally broke the silence.
“You know, even after all this time the weather here still gets me.“
“Really? How?” The pegasus asked languidly, careful not to move her head as she did so. She was enjoying the ear rub far too much to risk disturbing it.
“Well, for the first twenty something years of my life the weather was just kind of… there. It was something that just happened; no ponies moved the clouds or brought the rains, no alicorns raised the sun or lowered the moon. It just happened, happily pottering along on it’s own like some huge piece of clockwork.”
Lero paused to think for a moment, the ear rubs ceased for a second much to Rainbow’s dismay, only to start again as he continued to speak.
“Or maybe a really long science experiment; a monumentally big one set in motion millions of years ago and left to its own devices. Humanity kept trying to predict what the weather was going to do next and where it was going to happen but in the end Mother Nature was always holding all the cards.”
Lero gently ran a finger around the outer edge of his lover’s ear, keeping his touch so soft that at times it was almost teasing. Carefully pinching the ear between his thumb and forefinger he used his thumb to slowly push along the back of the pinna, moving slowly along the lay of the fur all the way from the base to the gently pointed tip.
In the far distance a group of pegasi in flight could just be made out, most likely a group of friends returning from a weekend of camping in the White Tail Woods. The light of the evening sun setting behind them left them little more than a gathering of black smudges wavering on the horizon as they made their way towards Ponyville. With luck they’d make it back home before darkness set in.
After a few moments of his gentle and much appreciated ministrations, Lero restarted his verbal wanderings. “She kept them close to her chest that’s for sure; sunny skies could turn to torrential rain in minutes, calm seas into killer waves faster than sailors could deal with. We could have droughts that lasted for years, storms that ravaged entire cities. We tried our best to prepare but every time we thought we had Mother Nature licked she’d just laugh in our faces and send us a twister or something to knock us right back on our asses.”
Lero sighed, his breath causing the top of Rainbow’s mane to bounce around as he exhaled.
“As a species we’re so full of ourselves; we put men on the moon, sent ships to the bottom of the oceans, put up buildings that can pierce the clouds, created machines that can travel at speeds that’d make a pegasus’ head spin. But then all it takes is one hurricane or earthquake or tsunami and it just reminds us just how small and powerless we really are.”
Lero brought his hand to his brow and pinched the top of his nose in a way that Rainbow had seen him do a number of times when he had something big on his mind. It usually seemed to help him, maybe it would help her too on those days when her brain was feeling all fluffy.
“Humans can be really stupid at times. We created weapons of mass destruction that could kill thousands of people in the blink of an eye, forged fanatics so full of hate and fear that they would destroy huge buildings full of innocents just to try and prove a point. Then Mother Nature would just pop up with a show of strength that made us all just look like a bunch of squabbling children. It was like she was telling us to just put our silly little toys back in the toybox and try and play nice. We never listened though.”
Rainbow shivered at the thought of anypony, or anyone come to think of it, actually trying to kill another. Try as she might it was something that she just couldn’t get her head around. Sure pony history had it’s fair share of bloodshed but they’d been so long ago it was almost as if it were some other species’ at war across the pages of her long ignored history books. Either that or they were some type of made-up fictional characters in historical settings, like in the box set of ‘Moon Dancer: Warrior Princess’ books Twilight had given her for her last birthday.
Whichever way, she still didn’t get it. Why would one intelligent being deliberately try to kill another? How far would you have to have to push somepony to get to that point? How scared or threatened would you have to feel to make cold-blooded murder seem OK? These were questions she just didn’t have an answer for and for that she was glad, she hoped she’d never be in a position where she’d have to make that choice.
Letting the conversation lapse, Lero turned his attention back to the sky. The flock of pegasi were much closer now and from the looks of it their flight path would take them over Sweet Apple Acre’s northern fields, an approach which would eventually take them directly into the middle of town.
As their journey angled them away from the where the two observers sat they could see it was four heavily laden flyers and, although he didn’t have his partner’s keen eyesight, Lero could see that one of the flyers was bobbing and weaving slightly under her weighty load, her characteristically uneven flight easily giving away her identity.
The three other flyers were obviously keeping to a safe distance but whenever their friend wavered they were always quick to move in closer in case their assistance might be required.
It was heartening to see the town’s resident mailmare getting out and about with her friends. Lero had heard that she just hadn’t been the same since her unfortunate 'incident' some years before the human’s arrival in Equestria.
While an outsider would think that her clumsy nature and frequent brushes with misfortune would set her apart from her neighbours, in reality she was one of the town’s most favoured residents. Whatever mishaps she may have found herself in the middle of, or whatever minor disasters she may have inadvertently caused, no pony could ever stay mad at her for very long.
Lero watched her for a short while, surrounded by friends who cared deeply for her even if they generally tried to hide it, before he continued.
“You don’t have that kind of uncertainty about the weather here, everything’s planned out and controlled and on the whole pretty safe. Except for the occasional bit of rogue weather or a weather team screw up.”
Rainbow glanced up at him, catching the distracted look in his eyes. “Or that time that totally kicking hailstorm sneaked out of Everfree while I was away taking my entrance exams.” She reminded him, looking around to see what her lover had been watching so intently.
“Totally fouled up my work schedule when I got back.” She added. “Took weeks to get everything back in perfect balance. Totally nailed it though, no one knows the Ponyville weather team like I do. Blossomforth better be treating my girls right or she’d gunna have me to answer to.“
Rainbow puffed out her chest with pride. She may have come down on her old team like a hardass most of the time but they were the best crew south of Canterlot. Best crew north of Canterlot too come to think of it.
“Yeah, that was great, a real old-fashioned bit of surprise weather.” Lero remarked before his expression quickly became pensive “Except for the panic though, that wasn’t great. A lot of Ponyville doesn’t seem to handle the unexpected very well. I think the flower girls, ya know, Rose, Daisy and Lily, they caused almost as much damage as the hail did and that’s saying something; some of those ‘stones were a good few inches across.”
Lero shuddered at the memory. The damage to the town had been severe in places and, while the additional handyman jobs had been good for his finances, he’d had to draft in a lot of extra ponies to get though the extra workload. But on the upside, he’d helped young Apple Bloom gain her cutie-mark that week so they’d at least had a fantastic cause for celebration once the repairs were finished.
“But apart from that, you guys’ got it all covered. Kinda takes some of the fun out of it I think. No dashing about in an unexpected rain, no surprise snowball fights, no creepy lightning storms knocking out the power.” Lero gave a theatrical chuckle and wiggled his fingers out in front of him in what the pegasus had come to realise was the human version of a ‘scary story’ waving of the hooves.
“You know the one bit of the weather I really miss though?” He moved his hand back to Rainbow’s ear and resumed his attentive stroking.
The pegasus slowly shook her head. She tried not to think too much about all the things her lover must have left behind. Even knowing that even if he were ever given the chance he’d never choose to go back, it still hurt to think that there might be something about his life with her that he found lacking.
“Rainbows.” It was a simple reply and though she’d had no idea what he was going to say, that definitely hadn’t been it.
“What, but we got rainbows right here. I’ve got one built into my old cloud house.” Rainbow waved a hoof back in the direction of Ponyville. “I mean, I know I’ve had to shut it off while it’s parked in the yard but it still works. When Scoot’s a bit older and we can move the house back up high again I’ll get it running and you can see it everyday. It’ll be awesome, I’ll even add a second one if you like.”
Lero gave the pegasus a wide smile while he ruffled her mane, causing her to playfully wave a hoof in front of her face in some weak form of mock defiance. He appreciated everything she did to try and help him fit in, to help him feel just touch more at home in a world far from the place of his birth.
"Yeah, I know you have them here, but they’re not like human rainbows. Our rainbows aren’t real, they’re not solid, just an optical illusion. They’re just light reflecting off of water droplets projecting a huge arc of colour across the sky.”
“Eh? Dude, that just sounds weird.” That wasn’t how they made them here in Equestria and Rainbow should know; she’d won a number of awards for her rainbows. Her fans still occasionally came up to her to ask if she’d make them one of her custom jobs to show to their friends, requests she was usually more than happy to fulfill. The more ponies that got to see her amazing hoofiwork, the more ponies’d know just how totally awesome she was.
“Well, they’re kinda like…” Lero paused a moment to think of something similar he could compare them to.
“You know that cool thing you do when it’s really sunny; that one where you zip though the middle of a bunch of clouds so the water vapour gets caught up in your flight magic’s slipstream and then you shake them out when you land so the sunlight makes them coalesce into a mini rainbow above your head?” Lero waved his hands around excitedly as he described his favourite of Rainbow’s many crowd pleasers.
“Yeah, that is pretty awesome” The pegasus could feel herself starting to blush, she liked it when Lero praised her and if it was about her flying then all the better. Just hearing him say something about how wonderful he thought she was or how much he liked her stunts was even better than hearing a whole crowd ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ below her.
“I’m, err, I’m glad you like it. I could do it again sometime if you like.” Making a rainbow by hoof wasn’t easy; in fact there were very few pegasi who could still do it the old fashioned way at all. But then again, radical stuff like rainbows and sonic rainbooms were part of her special talent
Rainbow could still feel the flush spreading under her fur as she pushed the toe of a forehoof into the grass beneath them. How could he still do this to her? How could he make her feel so much like a giggly little school filly with just a few words? Not that it was necessarily a bad thing of course, but by Celestia, she was a married mare now, how could her stallion still do this to her so easily?
“That’d be great.” Lero smiled at her, making the blush move further up her cheeks, threatening all the while to continue its advance up to her ears if she didn’t do something about it soon.
Lero put on a little pout that Rainbow had to admit, though not out loud, was simply adorable. “I hope when you’re a fully fledged Wonderbolt this doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to give me my private shows any more.” He grumped.
“Oh, I’ll always have time to give you a private show.” The pegasus wiggled her eyebrows at him in a suggestive manner. She figured if she was going to be all embarrassed anyway she might as well go for broke, get some smut out there and try to make Lero blush too. No reason she should be the only one to suffer and he just looked so darn cute when his skin changed colour like that.
“You sure you don’t fancy some outside action right now?” She leant over to push her muzzle behind Lero’s ear, using the soft fur around her nose to tickle her stallion’s bare neck. It had taken time but she’d figured out almost all his most sensitive spots by now and boy was it ever worth it.
“Hey, cut that out,” Lero leant back on his hands to get away from the evil tickle attack but Rainbow saw her chance and pushed the human onto his back, wriggling herself on top of him as he fell. Once they were laid belly to belly she tucked her legs up under herself so they rested against Lero’s sides, supporting the majority of own her weight so that she wasn’t pushing unduly on her lover’s ribcage. This had the fortunate - for her at least - side effect of effectively pinning Lero’s torso and legs to the ground while leaving his arms free to play.
Rainbow pulled her lips back in the biggest grin she could manage, which was much wider than a human could ever hope to achieve without damaging something, presenting a set of pearly white teeth that if she had been a carnivore would have been terrifying. Lero threw his hands back above him on the grass in a show of mock horror and terrified submission.
After a couple of wiggles to get herself comfortable, the pegasus let her head rest on the human’s upper chest while he reached over to once more rub at her ear. After a couple of contented sighs Rainbow brought the conversation back on track.
“So, you were telling me about human rainbows.“ She mumbled, trying to sound nonchalant.
“That I was.“ Lero let his hand run though Rainbow’s prismatic mane, spreading his fingers as they moved so they’d act like a large comb. He’d pull his hand away from her head, letting her hair splay out like a fan behind her before falling back to her neck as his fingers reached the end of each strand. Then he’d do it all over again, the brilliant rays from the slowly setting sun making each vividly coloured strand glow brightly, each falling lazily from his fingers like a little spray of colour.
“Generally when we got rainbows back on earth it was after a big storm. The rain would fall and the wind would blow and as the storm died away it’d leave all these water droplets hanging in the air. Then the sun would come out and, if you were standing in just the right place and the sun was at just the right angle in the sky, the water droplets would catch the rays and split them up into their component colours and spread them across the sky.
“Every now and again you’d get a day where the sun was so bright you could get a double rainbow which was one rainbow mirrored around another. They were pretty rare so you’d often see people stop in the street and point them out to each other.”
Lero stopped playing with the pegasus’ mane for moment to tickle her nose.
“Well they were like our own little bit of magic, ya know. This great glorious swath of colour across the sky.” Lero swept his hands wide to take in the heavens above them as he continued. “They didn’t really exist like they do here; you couldn’t touch them or catch them, you couldn’t even get close. If you moved towards them they just seemed to get even further away or just… vanish.” He waved the fingers of one hand out above them as if to push away a wisp of smoke.
Rainbow laid her head across Lero’s chest and closed her eyes. Even if she couldn’t understand every little thing he said she still loved to listen to the sound of her lover’s voice, to feel the soft rumble of his chest as he talked, the slow rise and fall of his ribcage as he breathed. Behind her closed eyelids she tried to imagine a human rainbow, huge and intangible, not a solid object as she was used to. It was amazing to think that something so magical could exist without some pony to make it happen.
After letting his lover get settled Lero waved a hand in a vague westerly direction. “Or I guess a better example would be something like how you can never catch the sunsets here, they just, well, happen relative to where you’re standing, no matter where you are. If we were suddenly shifted twenty miles or so that way, the sunset’d seem to be twenty miles further that way too.”
The memory of Lero explaining to Twilight how his planet had actually moved around its sun, continuously rotating as it did so, brought a smile to Rainbow lips. The unicorn had been stunned silent at the idea that if you flew fast enough you could actually chase the sunset around the planet pretty much forever. The pegasus still wished she’d had Rarity’s camera to hoof as the expression on her herdmate’s face had been completely priceless and well worth sharing with…. Well, everypony she could find really.
The whole process was so different from Equestria where, due to the magic of harmony, the sun and the moon rose and fell for every point on the planet at exactly the same time. The idea that half of the world could be bathed in sunlight for half of the day while the opposite side could be shrouded in darkness just seemed crazy.
Nopony knew for sure where Equestria’s sun and moon went when they weren’t on display, no ponies but the royal sisters at least and they weren’t telling. The most they’d ever revealed on the subject (and they’d been asked, boy had they been asked) was the reassurance that they were being ‘well looked after’, usually accompanied by a pair of enigmatic smiles and a change of subject.
Even the human’s stars were weird, what with them being really reallyfar away and all compared to their pony brethren. They took tens of thousands of years, tens of millions even, to change their relative positions rather than moving about at the will of the lunar princess, not that she’d moved them much recently due to the overwhelming number of complaints from the astronomers guild. After a thousand years of Princess Celestia leaving the stars of Equestria’s night sky in one configuration the guild had become quite protective of them, much to Princess Luna’s chagrin. But at least the human’s stars had the decency to slowly make their way across the sky throughout the year like they were supposed to, so at least there was that small similarity.
On the whole though, Princess Luna been rather enamored of the ‘rotating planet’ concept; even when she had to somewhat sheepishly admit that, had she thought of suggesting something similar a millennia ago, they could have avoided that whole nasty little Nightmare Moon incident and she could have easily skipped out on a thousand years imprisoned on the moon.
Realising her lover had fallen silent Rainbow cracked open an eyelid, just in time for him to start again.
“As humans grow up we’re told fairy tales of magic and adventure, of evil witches and noble princes, of how evils are vanquished and how good will always shine though. We think everything’s going to be so great, that we’re really going to be someone important, that we can somehow make the world a better place. But then we grow up and we realise that that’s not how it all works and that we’re never going to rescue the princess or defeat the dragon or tame the mighty pegasus.”
Lero couldn’t resist moving his hand to quickly run a single finger lightly along Rainbow’s back, catching all the right spots to send shivers of delight shooting along her spine, culminating in a small involuntary twitch of her tail. No one could deny that he’d certainly managed to tame this mighty pegasus.
“It’s nothing like here at all, where you actually get to go off and have these amazing adventures, like when Princess Celestia sent you all up north to save the crystal ponies, or when we had all those Pinkies to round up, or when that crazy mare came to town to pick a fight with Twilight.”
Rainbow blew a small snort of air through her nose at the mention of Trixie’s last visit to Ponyville. This town only had enough room for one mind bogglingly rocking crowd pleaser and she sure wasn’t about to give up that position up to some lameass foal thinking she was hot stuff anytime soon. Once Twilight had pulled herself together it totally hadn’t ended well for the boastful magician; though the pegasus had to admit it had all been worth it just to watch Lero slapping paint all over Big Mac to make the draft pony look like his cowgirl sister.
As a perverted chuckle was making its way to her lips, the pegasus’ trip down memory lane was interrupted as the human started to speak again. And it was just getting to the really good part too.
“There’s been so much happened just since I arrived that it just blows me away every time I stop to think about it. There’s so many thousands of ponies, so many stories to be told. You could spend a lifetime writing them all down and never run out. The folks back on Earth just wouldn’t believe half the stuff that goes on here, it’s just so different to anything we’ve ever seen.”
Lero used his free hand to grab at a few blades of grass from the ground next to him, pulling them free before letting them float away in the breeze. Most of them decided to take up residence across his face or in his mouth so he soon gave up.
“So anyway, the adults make up these stories for the kids and for the most part everyone plays along like some great unspoken agreement not to spoil the surprise untill they're old enough to figure it out themselves. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the fairies at the end of the garden, Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, Jack Frost, the rabbits that live on the moon.”
Craning his neck so he could look his lover straight in the eye, the human quickly added. “Which is made of cheese by the way. True story.”
Rainbow lifted her head at that one. A whole moon made of cheese? Nah, he had to be winding her up. Even the human moon couldn’t be that freaky.
Swiftly planting a kiss on his confused looking lover’s face, Lero let his head fall back onto the grass.
“But part of us keeps those stories deep inside even when we’ve grown up and sometimes we find ourselves wishing on a star or standing in the street pointing at a rainbow or sat on your ass mesmerised by a sunset. These are things that no matter how long I live here, I don’t think they’ll never really leave me. Of all the things I’ve brought with me, these are the ones I’m most thankful for.”
Lero started to gesture with his free hand as he pressed on, the tips of his fingers tracing lazy circles in the air in front of them.
“You see, the human world is so large and so many terrible things happen, so many things that we’re just too small to do anything about, that we need something to believe in, something to try and even it all out. We just need a little bit of magic in our lives so we take it where we can find it; a falling star or a sunset or a baby’s cry or a lover’s smile. All those things for us to believe in just to make it through the day.”
Rainbow didn’t know what she could say to try and take some of the pain from her lover’s voice. She wasn’t exactly a mare of words; she was a mare of action. If you wanted something technical (or boring) explained the you went to Twilight, if you wanted to talk about the fabric of the universe or the possibly eternal nature of the soul and all that other stuff that the pegasus of the herd just didn’t get then you went to Lyra, if you wanted something actually done then you went to Rainbow.
Besides, her stallion didn’t often like to talk about where he came from anymore. Occasionally he’d discuss obscure scientific principles with Twilight and the princesses or debate philosophy late into the night with Lyra or even spend time teaching Sweetie Belle some strange new human song if she’d cajoled him for long enough.
But over time he’d been less and less forthcoming about anything from his personal history or even about humanity and his old home world in general. If he was ever asked directly he’d make a cryptic off-hand comment and move the topic to something closer to home, closer to his new home anyway, and then move on as if the conversation hadn’t happened.
It was almost as if in accepting that Equestria was now truly his home he’d started to wall away where he had come from, the very place which had made her beautiful, amazing lover everything that he was. For him to open up like this was a rare thing recently and Rainbow wanted to do anything she could to keep him talking. So, she did what she did best; she took action.
Pulling her hooves in tighter against the human’s sides she pushed herself in closer to his chest, all so he could better feel the warmth of her body against his own. She a wanted to remind him that he wasn’t alone, that no matter what she’d be there to share with him her warmth and her love whenever he might need it. Everything she had she would gladly give to him; no questions, no hesitations.
At her movement Lero dropped a hand to her forehead as he used his fingers to idly scratch behind her ears. After a moment of quiet contemplation he continued his wanderings.
“Like a sunset tells us that each day ends so another has a chance to begin, the rainbow is there to tell us that no matter how bad the storm, eventually the sun will come out to dry away the rain. No matter how bad life can get, no matter the ups and downs, ‘this too shall pass.’”
Lero unexpectedly shifted his weight and Rainbow was surprised to find herself suddenly laid out on her side in the cool grass. Her lover had also turned onto his side, gazing deep into her eyes as he reached over to cup her face in his warm hands, his strong fingers resting gently against her soft fur.
“So I guess it’s about hope. Hope that everything will eventually work out ok. That our loved ones will be safe, that our children will be healthy, that our lives will be full of love and laughter and we can live in peace and harmony for the rest of our days.”
Lero moved his face closer to hers, so close that she could feel his breath tickling the end of her nose, the scent of him overpowering everything else in her world.
“But you know what? It is all ok.” Lero moved closer still, so close that she could feel the short hairs of his neatly trimmed facial hair brush tantalisingly against her lips.
“Because no matter what happens, I’ve got my own beautiful private rainbow right here, now and forever.” And with that he gently pressed his lips to hers in a kiss so soft and tender and all encompassing that as far as Rainbow was concerned everything else in the universe, everything but just the two of them, ceased to exist.
“And that’s all the hope I need.”
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At some point soon I'll actually sit down and get out the chapter I want to write, not the one that wants to be written.
2049261
Nope, the story does was the story wants.
This chapter was full of feels. SO many feels.
So Lero is the balanced individual between all three mares. Sounds about right.
That was just amazing. Really heartfelt, and beautifully written.
Also, what's this?! 3 updates in less than a week? AWESOME!
2049261
Someday this should be turned into a novel. Right now, it's too random, so much is missing and waiting to be told, like the holes in a changeling's legs. Someday.
And it will be grand.
I must say, I love your ability to write to any mood; comedy, romantic, deep and thoughtful, dark. . . You succeed at grabbing your readers in every atmosphere, and keep perfectly in character with those created by the original author of Xenophelia. I have nothing else to say; I simply love your work.
The... the... the... feels...
thisgot me in the feels cause its so true man i think u turned me into a hippie man
Did I decent some obscure biblical reference in there? "This too shall pass?" as in Gam Zeh Ya'avor, the inscription on King Solomon's ring?
I liked this. A lot. Even if you didn't intend to reference ancient Hebrew kings. Or poetry by Theodore Tilton. Great chapter.
I can't really find any words that correctly describe the way I feel about this chapter, but I believe that "Awesome" will suffice for now.
That... was... beautiful.
Gonna have to go with "awesome" as well.
There's a philosopher in all of us and sometimes he just wants to get out and let his opinions be heard.
Not bad, but the inexplicable misanthropy at odds with content of the original fic that this story is based on kind of threw me off a bit.
One of the things brought up in the original fic that the ponies are not better or worse than humanity, as individuals or as a society. Each species had its wars and its dark parts of history and similar problems.
EDIT: In the original fic, when Lero talked about how Carthage was utterly destroyed, Rainbow Dash declared it to be "Hardcore", and had similar views of ancient pony battles. In this chapter, she has suddenly become incredibly squeamish about death and war and violence. It just seems incredibly out of character to me.
It was one of the reasons I liked the original quite a bit even though I am generally not a fan of "clop".
I know it wasn't the main focus of the chapter, but Lero's little speech about how much better Equestria is than our world was really jarring to me. It just seemed really out of character for Lero considering what he has learned about and personally had to deal with in Equestria (historical conflicts, sexism, speciesism). Plus, that kind of angst is one of my pet peeves, and unfortunately I have found that It is far too common in MLP:FiM fanfics.
I'm sorry, I know that this chapter is probably fantastic judging by the other reviews, but I just found myself unable to look past that one significant (to me, anyway) issue.
I know I am making a much bigger deal about it than I should be... but I just can't help it.
static4.fjcdn.com/comments/3550360+_1b2545419268a46c5ef561875e082cf8.jpg
Well this was philosophical makes me wish for that moment to just stop and stare. Quietly take things in. I find it hard to do that, but when i finally slow down and stop everything else. I love it.
2049261
not sure, but I think these introspective pieces are the most interesting\
2050565
I was taking it as more like he was just saying how much different how one won't feel insignificant in Equestria. How insignificant one could feel even as a species at the mercy of their planet on Earth. I never took it as him saying Equestria is better. I took it as, I cannot discern. Meditate on this I must.
Words cannot describe how awesome this chapter is I can’t wait for the next one.
On the "This too shall pass" segment, my brain connected to one of my own favorite feels:
Just when this world seems mean and cold
our love comes shining red and gold
and all the rest is "by the way"
It's silly, but I was kind of hoping he'd say it.
Just when I hit the part about rainbows, my playlist hit the perfect song.
All That Remains- Josh Kramer
Try it.
You might like it.
I get way too much enjoyment out of Rainbow treating her gigantic cloud mansion like an RV. Inconvenient for her non-flying herd? Drop it on the lawn and kick out the parking brake.
Maaan... i tried to read this one and the one before but i just can't focus.
"Is this our last embrace?" keeps popping in my mind.
Durn you cliffhangers! Durn youuuuu!
Really? Nobody's posted a link to THE song for this yet?
Well, here we go.
2050565
No, it's great that you're willing to voice your opinion. We'd never be able to have a proper discussion otherwise.
Two things about the chapter that may (or may not) help you get to where I was coming from.
One: when we first met Rainbow back in episode one of the show, she was pretty much a jock, a bit of a college drop-out, a mare of action not contemplation. She didn't like to read or plan or wait or even think too far ahead. During the first three seasons we've seen her grow and mature - take her attempt at stealth in... err.. that one with the buffalo, or her taking a stand against a reckless mare who was basically her from three years before in 'Wonderbolts Academy' for example.
Now in the Leroverse she's a few years older & wiser and has started to take an interest in reading (and thinking) and spends a lot of time actually considering about how another person may feel and how she affects the lives of those around her.
Part of the reason she finally made it into the Wonderbolts (and as an officer too) was that she's finally started to grow up, and in growing up she's considering the consequences of her actions. While before she may have seen a war in a history book and thought "Wow, awesome!", now she's actually open how horrible the reality of it all must have been.
(I guess much much like the number of kids who grow up with their XBoxes and then join the army thinking it'll be all COD or Modern Warfare end up facing a very sharp dose of real life when they find HP isn't measured in stim packs and their buddies don't respawn every 5 minutes.)
Two: Lero's a smart guy and unfortunately brains can often go hand in hand with the occasional bout of depression. For so long Rainbow was the most stable element of his life and now he's not only had to spend a month without her, he's starting to face the fact that their life is not going to be the same as it was once she graduates.
That and he wasn't so much as saying Equestria was better, just different.
....and that's pretty much just pulled a whole chunk out of what was going to be chapter 11. Bugger, gotta go rewrite that now.
2050565
We are a proud species because we are the only ones who can do that kind of stuff. And considering we started as a bunch of near-hairless primates wearing animal skins, licking bones and living in caves, surviving in a hostile enviroment Everfree forest style, I think we accomplished kinda a lot.
Futhermore, humanity is entire self-taught: not inherent magical abilities to tame our enviroment and secure our foodstock, no magic of friendship to keeping us playing fair which eachother or defeat the bad guys, and no Celestia, Luna or Fausticon godesses to enlighten, protect and guide us. Ponies simply had it far, far easier.
No, Lero
. Mommy Nature is never trying to teach us anything. Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanos and tsunamis are simply part of her mood and couldn´t care less if the puny living organisms down here survive or not. Dinosaurs didn´t go extinct for their sins, either.
In fact, being cruel, mean and violent are a necessary trait for survival, and if you watch National Geographic you can see the other species aren´t so different in that regard: (male lions killing and devouring the cubs of their defeated rivals, male dolphins gang-raping another dolphins, hatchled eagles performing siblicide, etc...). Yes, we can be worse than any of them, but also we can show genuine generosity, love and sacrifice, sometimes even outside our species (and just for being clear, I´m talking about petting or nature preservation programs).
2052150
Well said, I like it. While disagreeing with what a character's said, a well thought out argument has been presented with rationalisation and considered back-up and no name calling or shouting. Different opinions and viewpoints hopefully lead to open discussion and that was what I was I was hoping for. I regret that I can only give your comment one thumbs up.
While I really like the story, I can't help but feel that the flow of it is all over the place.
In the last three chapters you started two story arcs, both very well written, thought out and gripping, and then you post this last chapter. Both Rainbow´s revelation of her being barren and the flight from the hive had a lot of momentum that you didn't resolve into anything because it doesn't feel like any of those arcs were concluded. The hive one in fact, was not.
The quality of your writing has not lessened at all, but reading these last few chapters has been more than a little confusing :/
Not gonna lie.
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This chapter was so, very beautiful.
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2049261
A story with no inspiration is dead. If you tried to force yourself to write something it just wouldn't be as good as this is. And let me tell you, this is fan-frickin'-tastic.
Very enjoyable chapter, I’m glad Rainbow is still OP in the cuteness department.
All I gotta say is this:
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Have some beauty in return
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And yet, despite all our varied achievements and accomplishments, you don't take back how full of ourselves we are. How about all the diseases we've cured? The technology to unite the world in a single world wide web? The medical knowledge necessary to save the lives of billions worldwide? The ability to travel around the world in hours? That we have been to the moon and have a deeper scientific understanding of how the world works than ponies ever will?
If we're full of ourselves, it's because we are just that damn good.
2049261 You're so deep I can't even see you anymore.
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2051536 Man, I don't know why, but that made me cry.
Your magic won't work on me. No manly tears here.
...
Just came here from shotglass oneshots link and reread.... that alternate ending for this? Has absolutely NOTHING to do with this.
I've seen some horrors, I've lived through much fewer sorrows and rarely have I wept, today was no different.
It's because I smile at these horrors, when people get up, dust off and continue on or help out those around them. I go through these sorrows like any other day because I know in life there is but one guarantee... death, but what we do should make us happy and if that means others are as well? Than that is even greater. Humanity is a wonderful thing, these ponies realize their life as normal, but many humans would see it as great. Who wouldn't? It's painted in such a way as near perfect. Me though, I would never give up my life here. The world we live in. It's a horrible greatness, a wonderful ending
2117710 (Necro-response as fuk)
For every disease we've cured, we've created more; MRSA and diabetes pop to mind.
For all that the internet has brought us together, it has brought the abuse of bullying into places children once thought safe.
Despite the wisdom to cure disease on a mass scale, there are still those who shun the knowledge; the polio outbreak in India really stands out.
We are full of ourselves. For all that we know, we squander our resources, fight amongst ourselves and poison the very world we live in. We are children playing with daddy's loaded gun. We need to grow the fuck up before it is too late.