Explaining the Leucrota Affair · 12:48am Jan 7th, 2014
I've been thinking on the last two (or rather three, including the bonus) chapters in Solar Sails. The escape from the cave and the fight with the beast.
I feel guilty about it. Guilty that I stopped the story where it should have been moving forward to the most important bits: interacting with ponies directly.
For those who haven't read the chapters yet, do so now. What follows is Spoilers.
At the end of the chapter before all that started, everything was set up for Sarin Miles to abandon the wilderness and hike to pony civilization. South to Ponyville and all that. And then I proceeded to say “nope, first we're going on an even bigger tangent than the one on linguistics!” Seems like a cop out and a feint, like I'm putting it off.
Not my intention.
The first reason I decided to drop a rainstorm on the characters and stop the plot progressing in that area was because of character. I hadn't established in story that Sarin was a contortionist. Might seem like a weird trait to foist on an already (literally) alien character. Trust me, it'll come up a bit later in the story. For that to happen and not seem like an ass-pull, I needed to establish this skill set. And try as I might, I couldn't find a good place up until chapter four to bring it up. Sarin was in a series of large, open areas without a lot of contorting to do. And if she went to Ponyville, I figured that would be too late. The Ponyville business marks roughly the halfway point of this adventure, and introducing her skill at bending into a knot at that point would be problematic.
That's why an entire chapter was devoted to Sarin squeezing through a tunnel of rock.
The second reason for this arc was not enough action. After the first chapter, there were long stretches of slow stuff. Sarin surviving, introducing concepts, and her learning why the crash happened. I wanted to show that yes, Sarin really is a soldier. That she can hold her own in a fight.
The third reason is one of world building. My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic has one of the best open worlds in fantasy; a place where anything is possible, and magic and monsters are everywhere. Given that, I wanted to fill in some of the gaps. It's a crime that a thousand fics have and will crop up involving changelings or what have you, and yet the rich vein of mystical creatures mankind has invented would remain so untapped in the fandom. I wanted to rectify that.
That in mind, what the hell is a Leucrota? This is one I dug out from obscurity. I'm a long time mythology buff, always have been, so I popped open one of my favorite books on the subject: “The Book of Dragons And Other Mystical Beasts” by Joseph Nigg (Copyright 2002). It's a thin book with only a page of text per beastie, but it has gorgeous artwork and covers a fairly wide swathe. Creatures from all over made it in, including the Crocotta from India. It's like a dog except bigger and more ferocious, with the ability to mimic voices. Cut out its jewel like eyes and they can be used to tell the future. And if it mates with another animal, it produces a Leucrota.
So that's where that comes from. It was an interesting experiment and one I think worked extremely well. Need to do something like that again in later fics. What's funny is I was just looking for a big brutish monster that could roll a boulder over the cave entrance. But the Leucrota worked much better than I expected it would. Got a lot more out of it. Here's hoping someone uses it in another fic.
The fourth reason (yes there's more) to why these arc exists is to develop Sarin as a character. I'm always worried I haven't made her rounded enough to stand as a likable protagonist. More importantly, I'm working towards a particular arc in her character development, and these scenes helped move towards it. I even got to take a bit leap on it that I hadn't planned for.
Which brings me to reason five, the unplanned benefit to all this. I got to have a sad, dramatic moment. That and a bonus chapter. This came about because I was concluding the fight between Sarin and the beast, and was listening to music while doing so. It just happened to be a sorrowful contemplation of loss and bitter regret. It was at that point that I realized I cared for the Leucrota and cared that it died. That I'd killed it by writing its death scene. From there it was almost a natural progression to writing the aftermath bittersweet rather than triumphant.
And since I refused to change the music track and end the sad mood I was in, I ended up writing the bonus chapter. And I think the work as a whole is better for it. Though perhaps the feelings of regret on Sarin's part seem to come out of nowhere. I'll try to justify it in later updates.
That's about it. From here we're back on track. No more isolation. Or at least less isolation as we accompany Sarin into pony society proper.
