• Member Since 29th Sep, 2011
  • offline last seen Tuesday

shalrath


I <3 GAMMA RAYS

More Blog Posts22

  • 242 weeks
    Luna can't sleep

    Back from the final Bronycon, more on that later. In the meantime, enjoy some horsewords. Bonus points for reading aloud.

    - - -

    Beneath a blackened sky, the pale milky moon cast a pallid glow across lands steeped in shadow.  A sea of muted grey from mountains thrust high, to plains fertile and fallow.

    Read More

    7 comments · 394 views
  • 402 weeks
    The struggles of half-assed fic research

    So here I was, minding my own business. I can't get two lines into a new story without having to stop and try to figure out a cooler sounding name than "Castle of the Two Pony Sisters"

    THEN THIS SHIT HAPPENS

    2 comments · 535 views
  • 402 weeks
    The final supper of the ficwhores

    The hot humid musk of Baltimore suffocates you like God's enormous unwashed ballsack the moment you step out the door. A sea of brick beckons the journey of a thousand steps between the gleaming glass zoo of migratory humans and the organic hive of stone and streets known as Charm City. You put your best foot forward, feeling it stick slightly against the pervasive brownish ichor of

    Read More

    1 comments · 556 views
  • 402 weeks
    Horsecon 2016

    Bronycon after-action report.


    (Confound these ponies, they drive me to drink)

    Had an absolutely tremendous time. Got to hang out with a few interesting people, such as..

    Admiral Biscuit (Hail Biscuit!)
    Arad
    Archonix
    Axis of Rotation

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    14 comments · 659 views
  • 567 weeks
    A tale of two pegasi.

    (Wrote a few thousand words today. Here's some of them. CH16 inbound)

    * * *

    It was a slow day in Ponyville.

    It couldn't be fast enough for Scootaloo.

    The wind whipped through her fuchsia mane as the grass receded behind each sharp stamp of her hooves.  Her short wings buzzed as they bit into the air, pushing herself with every erg of energy she could muster.  

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    5 comments · 842 views
May
12th
2013

A tale of two pegasi. · 5:37am May 12th, 2013

(Wrote a few thousand words today. Here's some of them. CH16 inbound)

* * *

It was a slow day in Ponyville.

It couldn't be fast enough for Scootaloo.

The wind whipped through her fuchsia mane as the grass receded behind each sharp stamp of her hooves.  Her short wings buzzed as they bit into the air, pushing herself with every erg of energy she could muster.  

Tap tap tap.

The brass watch rode high on her foreleg, nearly up to her shoulder.  It had thrown off her balance when it was fastened near her hoof.

Tap tap tap.

Her sight blurred as she forced herself forward, speeding past her own persistence of vision.  A small hill was fast approaching, followed by a dip that curved down into a wide open meadow.

Time it just right...

TAP.

She leapt forward into the afternoon sky.  Her wings spread further, slowing their rhythm but pushing harder with each swoop.  The ground fell away as she drove onward and upwards with exhilarated determination.

Tap tap tap.

Scootaloo’s wings were undeveloped for a pegasus of her age.  Not to say they were small, because that would be a very insensitive thing to say to a nervous young filly.  Even if it was true.  Undeveloped was a much better choice of words, as most doctors would agree.  It pointed out the obvious, while giving some modicum of hope that the wings might someday actually develop normally, and retaining plausible deniability in the case that they did not.  Which they very well may not.

Tap tap tap.

It was a difficult subject to broach.  Pegasi were born to fly, much like a giraffe was born to reach the leaves from the high branches of tall trees.  Not to say that a giraffe was born with a long neck to reach those leaves, as that’s not quite how nature works.  Rather, the giraffes that could not reach the tall branches simply ceased being giraffes after repeated and sustained bouts of malnourishment.  

Nature is so fascinating.

Fortunately for short giraffes, people with glasses, and pegasi with underdeveloped wings, there was little pressure for selection on these traits.  The same could certainly not be said for their ancestors, whereupon natural section honed many such traits to a needle-like point.  A sharpening of the species paid for by the whittled sacrifices of the many individuals that unfortunately ended up on the wrong side of the cut.  

Tap tap tap.

Pegasi of yore were a fierce and proud race.  Where nearly all animals are subject to the hardcoded programming of fight, flight, feeding, and.. well.. fucking, pegasi bore the notable distinction of interpreting ‘flight’ a bit too literally.  

They asked for it, after all.   

Warriors and poets, one and the same.  They wore their emotions on their shoulders, and their personalities were often as fiery as the brilliant color of their mane.  If one were to pick a specimen to personify the valiant spirit of pegasi, you would be hard pressed to find one more fitting than Athon.  A cyan pegasus with a coat the color of the sky, and the many streaks of a sunrise gracing her mane and tail.  She stood nearly shoulder to shoulder with Princess Luna, carried the brutish strength of Big Macintosh, yet still had the lithe muscle tone and streamlined profile as Rainbow Dash.  

There was little doubt to her physical prowess.  Though it remains in question as to whether the word ‘athlete’ was named after Athon, or the other way around.

Tap tap tap.

Patron saint of awesomeness, if such a word existed in her day.  If not, she would be the one to invent it.  Scootaloo may be a far cry from Athon physically, but if she happened to be watching from beyond the veil, on that particular day, seeing that orange and fuschia pegasus putting forth every effort to defy the edifice of low expectations that had been built up over her entire life, brick by brick, every condescendingly hopeful prognosis, every sympathetic shake of the head, every eschewed pick for the hoofball team; she would have smiled.  

There was more to being a pegasus than just having wings.  There was a spirit to it.  A spirit of moving forward.  Charging forth into the unknown.  Treating every challenge as a juicy morsel to appease an insatiable hunger.  To define predator and prey with the same distinction as ‘me’ and ‘everything not me’.

This particular sense of spirit was not well remembered by the pegasi of today - some particularly more than others.  The very nature of peace and harmony that afflicted Equestria had left that sense to atrophy and wither over many centuries.

Tap tap tap.

Athon was a rather notable pegasus, alas one lost to history.  Few remain to remember her exploits, though for those few, they are remembered vividly.  She was a champion to the royal court, long before the first stones of Canterlot Castle were set to mortar.  A confidante to the Princesses themselves, and ambassador to the kingdoms of dragons and gryphons.  While it is unknown whether she carried a foal to continue her bloodline, she was certainly responsible for birthing numerous stories and legends.  Yet, even the most outrageous embellishments of these stories often suffered from an imagination that was far too modest.  As they say, truth is often stranger than fiction.

As to whether she succeeded in bearing a foal to inherit her genetic jackpot, this cannot be confirmed.  She did spend many years outside of Equestria’s borders, but never slowed down to consider the placid pace of family life.  But, if one were the sort to place a wager, it would be a very safe bet to say that one or more descendants of Athon lived on within modern day Equestria.

Athon was a mare who took her “four F’s” very seriously.  

Tap tap tap.

Her renown was not limited to the Royal Court, nor even the surrounding nations.  Her importance extended far beyond any distant horizon, or any border drawn on a map.  She bore an Element of Equestria.  One of six.  

The Element of Sacrifice.

While there are few who remember Athon, and even fewer that remember her personal brand of vitriolic vibrancy for squeezing the most out of every moment of every day, there is just one that remembers her final minute.  Her last words.

“A pillar of light strikes the East, and moves to consume us!”

She was a mare of few words, but she made them count.  

Tap tap tap.

Despite Scootaloo’s best efforts, her flight was looking more like a parabolic trajectory.  She strained and struggled, but the apex was behind her, and the ground was coming to meet her.  It was a fight that she would not win, but one she would not concede.  

If there was one pony that Athon would cheer and stamp her hooves for, it was a small orange pegasus that was losing her fight with gravity.  

The nature of a pegasus was not simply to fight.  Anybody could play that game.  Any pony that was certain of victory, would play to win.  

It took a special sort of derangement to fight against unwinnable odds.  An honor of an acquired taste.  One did not simply wrestle a full grown dragon, lash a sinking ship to an enemy vessel, or challenge a Type 3 galactic civilization, and scream in defiance as claws pinned your chest to a cavern wall, or as your ship sank from beneath your boots, or as planets burned under the onslaught of an interstellar armada:  “I have not yet begun to fight!”

Tap tap tap.

Scootaloo was playing to lose.  

Yet it was not gravity that Scootaloo fought, despite all appearances to the contrary.  She had challenged a far more insidious beast.  One that drove the engines of the cosmos.  One that reached beyond the bounds of mortal existence.  One that ground away the traces of lives, empires, and civilizations with inexorable impassive aplomb.  A vulture that patiently awaited the demise of the stars themselves.  A beast that eternally laughed with shrill mindless prejudice as it delivered the one rule of its game; that one must run as fast as they can to simply stay in place.

She was fighting time itself.  And she was determined to prevail.

She could hear it.  

Tap tap tap.

The brass watch tapped against her foreleg.  A drumbeat that forced her mind into lockstep with the metronomic heartbeat of the invisible demon that spanned the universe.  

Tears streamed from her eyes as her wings burned from exertion.  The ground was approaching quickly, and she raised her hooves to forestall the inevitable.  

Her wings were noticeably undeveloped.  In fact, they would certainly stay that way if she never learned to flap them properly.  Buzzing along like a hummingbird did not properly stimulate the full range of muscles needed for flying, and she would certainly not be flying if she never flapped her wings properly.  And why would she, when the official prognosis was to wait for her wings to develop.  

Waiting.  Indecision.  Inaction.  The demon laughed.

Ha ha ha.

Tap tap tap

She landed fast, the tips of her hooves digging ruts through the sod as she skidded to a gallop.  

Scootaloo slowed to a trot, and finally stopped, panting for breath.  Her heart pounded with a tempo that outpaced the methodical ticking of the brass watch by three to one.  

A manic grin spread across her sweat drenched face.  Thirty seconds!  She stayed aloft for thirty seconds!  

This was not a record that most pegasi her age would be particularly proud of.  But she was.  

It was four seconds longer than the last time.

She could not defeat time, but she could tame it.

For one brief moment, time was given pause.  A respectful nod to a worthy opponent.  This one little orange pegasus had wielded the one weapon that could pierce its Achilles heel.

Impatience.

Scootaloo bit the lever on the side of the brass watch, and the gears whirled inside, resetting the countdown.  She twisted the bezel by five clicks.  Four to cool down, and one to fly like life depended upon it.  

It really was like a compass.

One that always pointed in the same direction.

Forward!

Report shalrath · 842 views ·
Comments ( 5 )

Any thoughts on this btw?

(few things i see to clean up, but its about 85% good)

I was going to ask where the second pegasus came in, but then I remembered the bit about Athon. Looks good, I await chapter 16 with zeal.

/slow applaud.

Loved it.

You should post this on the main story list so I can fave it! It's probably the best insight into Scootaloo's mind and heart that I've read in a long time!

1727620

I'm glad you liked it.

It's coming up soon.

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