Herding Inquiries - afterthought

Here is a short afterthought for Herding Inquiries.

Mild spoilers after the break.

The genesis for this story were quite simply plans I’ve had for Private and Dew since their initial conception way back in 2012. I always knew Private was bisexual, with a preference towards mares and especially Dew Doe. However, I always saw Dew Doe as willing to share and be open to Private also forming a relationship with a stallion.

So, I always knew they would end up creating a herd. I even played with the idea two times in RPs.

The first time around I played with the idea, Time Turner was the other stallion in the herd, but since in Equestria Tales he’s now in a confirmed relationship with Derpy, that wasn’t going to happen. The second time I toyed around with the idea, King Sombra himself became the other stallion.

It thus was pretty much destined since Possession that King Sombra would end up in a herd with Private and Dew, which is why I took my time with it and didn’t let it just suddenly happen out of the blue. As stated in the story, it started with them just continuing the reformation program from Retirement of a King and it eventually lead to the herd creation.

Octavia from the very start was always going to be the second mare. I can’t really say why I ended up choosing her a long time ago. I’ve honestly forgotten my original reasonings. But it stuck and I knew if I were going to bring the herd into the Equestria Tales, she would need to be there.

Which is why the entire story is from Octavia’s point of view, to reinforce that she was looking for something new and a herd relationship was something she was into.

Now I actually hesitated with doing this story, mostly because I was aware of how strongly shipped Octavia is with Vinyl Scratch. However, Commander Firebrand of FOB Equestria unintentionally came to my rescue with his “Taking Slice of Life too seriously” where he theorized Octavia and Vinyl were siblings. I pounced on that idea and ran away with it and haven’t looked back since.

I also enjoyed having Vinyl as the silent instigator of events. Slice of Life and Equestria Girls, pretty much established her as the silent one (more so than Private, yikes.) So staying true to that, she doesn’t get any dialogue, save that one last thought near the end but clearly got the ball rolling and how to deal with the press once it got too pushy.

This is honestly just a short little fluff showing how life is going with Dew and Private after Retirement of a King, just told from the point of view of a future member of the family. I’m honestly happy with how it came out and I had fun writing it.