Preview of the Next Chapter of Be Human · 9:25pm Jun 17th, 2013
The final COMBS story.
The mare walked through the snow towards the small town. She’d do this alone, she said, and insisted on doing so by leaving her guards behind. Stopping in the city of Oatmaha, she then convinced her escorts via a sizable amount of bits and told them to enjoy their New Year’s Eve, on her. Based on the hotel’s bar – and in particular the copious amounts of cider and other alcohol they had there – the guards did so with little issue; any concerns of impropriety were squelched when she insisted she wouldn’t tell her husband and it’d be kept in confidentiality. With that in mind, the guards went to celebrate the holidays, leaving her to her own devices. Knowing the guards that she’d hoofpicked for this mission, they’d drink themselves into a stupor and be that way for at least a couple of days.
And now here she was, in the town of Haymarket, forty miles south of Oatmaha, almost in the exact center of the country. As she walked through the winter air, a few ponies turned their head and wondered if she really was who she appeared to be; a few thought to ask, but thought better of it. After all, Haymarket was a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and there would be no reason for someone of her pedigree and import to come here.
Even still, she was present: Princess Champagne Dreams, wife of Prince Blueblood, spouse of the pony fourth in line to the Solar Throne. And she was dressed in winter finery, and unmistakably the alabaster unicorn with the wheat-hued hair. Walking past and nodding to a few more ponies that gave her a double-take as she moved on, she passed the majority of the town behind as she walked towards a somewhat-dilapidated log cabin just south of the town. None stopped her as she continued on, though that night a few of the townsponies would talk about their brush with royalty, or at least a mare who looked the part.
In any case, Champagne came to a stop just as the cabin became visible, but not so much that she could see the ponies who lived in it; the rustic, antiquated individuals that she was so inexorably tied to.
Time to do this, she told herself. She hated this part; she swore several times each year that she’d never come back – and yet she always did. She just as much swore that she’d reconcile her past and present, but…that would never happen, could never occur. Far easier to pretend to continue the lie that was her life than to even try. Yet every year she did, and every year she failed at this bucephalean task.
And yet here I go again, she thought. I wonder if this year will be any different?
Hmm, she seems less... Evilly motivated than the others. At least from this excerpt.
Champagne Dreams, eh?
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Yeah, which is surprising.
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Well, looks can be deceiving.
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None of them are explicitly "evily" motivated. For example, Minty's whole thing is that she despises DJ, Orange Box has severe mother relationship issues, Bon-Bon is just plain crazy, and Star Swirl is suffering from feelings of not living up to her namesake.
1151074>>1151327>>1151763 Well I do expect her to have a good enough reason that, if desperate, might make her consider NMM's temptations. And evil may not be the right word, just... wrong? I don't know, to COMBS they think their causes are justified, but to us outsiders they still seem bad (saving your family from that bitch Sandalwood vs murder your estranged sister DJ in a stubborn delusion).
Speculation: Champagne Dreams sounds like a woman with a falling out with her rural family after abandoning them for royalty, trying again to patch things up, only to have it fail again, not unexpected, but heartbreaking nonetheless. While that could be all wrong, it's what I gleamed from the excerpt, yet doesn't seem like the same revenge/choosing a lesser evil situation as the others.
Of course, I wholly expect all of that to be blown out of the water by the actual chapter, but it's just what sprang to my mind.