Next Story Plans - A Sneak Peek · 7:01am Apr 4th, 2014
While my intent had been to try and complete Nightmare Night: The Rest of the Time I wound up getting plenty of ideas for my next Doctor Whooves story, tentatively titled Aurora. It's a prequel to Nightmare in Old Equestria. It's still in early stages, about 2/3 through chapter one of a planned three or four. A little preview if anyone's interested:
Ace never liked to look at her reflection first thing in the morning. A part of her would just seethe in anger when she woke up and saw the pony staring back at her in the mirror. She never truly felt like herself until she was properly dressed. She had not previously been the type of pony who put a lot of effort into her appearance. Since leaving home, however, she had gotten into the habit of making special preparations each day. She took a deep breath to let out some of that seething frustration before she began.
First order of business: Wings. Ace had tried a few methods for them, but the single most reliable had been simple bandages wrapped tight around her torso. Once the bindings were on good and tight she tried moving her wings and winced as she found them locked down tight. Perfect; they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon. That was the least comfortable but most vital part of the process completed. The last thing she needed was for her wings to extend accidentally or out of instinct if something surprised her.
Confident her wings were secure, she moved on to obscuring them. She pulled from her closet her two preferred articles of clothing. A shirt as white as her fur, tight enough to further keep her wings tied down, but loose enough that they did not show through on close inspection in case her second piece of clothing was lost. The worn black jacket was some cast off thing she had discovered early in her self-exile. Old and worn she had put a lot of effort into repairing it and, in places here she couldn’t just fix the material, she had covered the tears by decorating it with patches and designs such that it looked like a piece of well traveled luggage. The jacket, more than anything else, made Ace feel whole.
Ace always felt a bit of guilt about what she did to her wings each day when she went through this routine. After all, her wings hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, she loved her wings and wished she could use them more often. Unfortunately, she’d realized long ago she had to make a choice, and the fact of the matter was that a pair of wings was easier to hide than a horn.
With her wings bandaged and her shirt and jacket further hiding them, Ace would look no different than your average, run-of-the-mill unicorn. With that dealt with the final step of her daily routine was dealing with the Cutie Mark adorning her flanks. She channeled power into her horn, which shined with a bright yellow light as she began chanting to herself. In truth, she didn’t really need to speak the spell. The more familiarity one gained with a spell the less incantations became necessary. Using the incantation anyway made the spell just a bit more powerful, and Ace preferred taking no chances when she applied this spell.
As Ace chanted, her Cutie Mark began to vanish. This almost always got her strange looks when she was in civilized places. Much as she would complain to the contrary, she was not yet a full adult. She was, however, more than old enough to have discovered her Cutie Mark and an adolescent without one was a rare sight anyplace she went. Once again it was the lesser of two problems. She had experimented with changing her Cutie Mark, but maintaining its appearance proved problematic as any mistake with the spell caused something completely different than intended to appear. Better to just remove it entirely and deal with a few odd looks. Better no Cutie Mark at all than a big bright sun.
“Much better!” Ace said to herself as she got a good look at herself in the mirror.
She felt better, too. Much more like herself. She was no winged unicorn everypony had decided was going to be some prim, proper, prissy princess. That wasn’t her at all. It was only when she hid her wings and Cutie Mark and donned her jacket that she could remember that, deep down, she was-
“Ace!” A voice called out. “We’re about to materialize. Don’t you want to see where we’re landing?”
“Coming, Professor,” Ace called in reply. She gave her reflection a final nod of approval and left the room.
That’s right.
She was Ace.
She traveled in the TARDIS, a ship that could go anywhere in time and in space. A ship that, on the outside, looked like a blue box called a “Police Barn.” A ship that, on the inside, was far larger than the outside could suggest. She traveled with the Professor. Or, at least, that’s what she liked to call him. Everypony else called him the Doctor. While Ace would hesitate to say so out loud, the Doctor had been a mentor to her. He was certainly a better teacher than any of the stuffy instructors and matrons that had tried to teach her back home. The Doctor was a pony she could respect, even if he wasn’t really a pony at all. He called himself a Time Lord and, given that the TARDIS was a time machine, Ace supposed that made sense.
There were times Ace felt guilty sometimes about the fact that she hid her real identity from him. She hadn’t even shown him her wings. Any time she felt such regrets, she quickly reminded herself that she wasn’t hiding anything. Her real identity was who she was, not who everypony else thought she was.
She was Ace. She was not the alicorn Celestia of Equestria.
That’s how it was going to stay.
Incidentally, I'm debating changing "Time Lord" to "Time Horse." I've seen "Time Charger" used, but doesn't have quite the same something to me.
There is no reason to change it to Time Horse, and Time Lord sounds far less silly.
Honestly, just because their horses doesn't mean every word has to be horse related. If they have the word Trek, the have Star Trek. If they have invented shields, then they have Agents of SHIELD.
Its just a mild pet peeve of mine.
This version of Ace is very interesting, and I hope to see more of her character development.
As i said before, it would be nice to see all of these stories be connected in some form or fashion. Celestia/Ace could be that link?
1981556
I may just stick with Time Lord, but I'm definitely using my pony-pun for UNIT (the Honorable Equestrian Royal Defenders)
1981561
I'm doing an almost backwards trilogy almost at the moment. With "Nightmare in Old Equestria "being one end, "Aurora" being the center, and another story "The Two Princesses" (7th Doctor & Celestia and 2nd Doctor & Twilight Sparkle) being a start point.
1982981
In all honesty, I like the name HERD more than UNIT.