Signal Boost Two - Mixed Nuts and Who Will Guard The Dreamers · 4:10pm May 6th, 2015
I have a story announcement, a few recommendations, and one brief glance inside my latest release. But first, my aimless ramblings.
I have two unpublished chapters in Changelings, Love and Lollipops, but I’m determined to FINISH the beast before I start releasing the chapters. Lord, grant me strength. And explosions. And skillets to the head.
There are criminally few favorites on The Tempest by Carabas. Please fix that.
By some horrible mistake, I seem to have forgotten to favorite Pineta. I’ve fixed that, but I would like to add some more sacrificial victims followers to the list. Please help.
Horizon has posted a blog post encouraging all of you to go read Records of an Academy Disaster, which I would like to encourage also. It reads a lot like A War of Words - The Opening of the Guard (only better) or Pineta’s Breaking News and Weather. (also very good)
Go read his blog post. It’s much more informative than mine.
Also, Equestria Daily is putting on a Writer Training Grounds event again for this year’s episodes, which means I’ll be producing a chapter’s worth of writing a week for it. Since my normal writing output is about a chapter a week, I’m going to have to pick it up a notch. Or two. If you’re interested in writing, come on into the pool. The water’s warm. (Hey! Not that way!)
Last but not least, I’d like to plug my new story Who Will Guard The Dreamers, which took 11th place in the Writeoff.me Great Expectations event. (Which is like winning First place twice, right?)
Long Description: After Nightmare Moon’s banishment, a mother struggles to cope with the death of her daughter and the lies being told about Princess Luna. In her despair, she is driven to a desperate attempt to find closure.
She will visit the moon in the Dreaming, and bring back her Princess of the Night.
I’ve added more scene-setting to the beginning of the story, because it needed it badly for anybody who isn’t familiar with my particular headcanon for batpony history. (It’s a nasty pothole for a writer to presume that the reader already knows certain background material, and I fell in that sucker face-first.)
Without further ado, here's the opening:
Who Will Guard The Dreamers
“Murderer.” I could not withstand the fury that filled my heart, and I gave quiet voice to another of the red tongues of fire that threatened to consume my soul. “Traitor. Thief. Betrayer of our trust.”
All around us, the soft clatter and murmur of voices continued as the rest of the diners in the restaurant lived on with their petty lives, not noticing or caring about the rage that burned in my heart. This night was supposed to be a symbol that my life had not ended when my daughter was slain and my Princess of the Night betrayed. My husband and I were supposed to be enjoying a small sliver of normality to bring our lives back together after our loss. He suggested a simple visit to our favorite restaurant, and I foolishly believed that the deep bloody gashes in my heart could be healed by returning to our lives as if nothing had happened. He might have been right, in some small fashion.
If not for the creature.
The murderous beast was small, as innocent in appearance as the newborn foal it pretended to be, with sparkling golden eyes and tiny bat-like wings that fluttered ineffectively when it had been tucked into the high chair by its unsuspecting foster parents.
Celestia had claimed its youthful ilk to be the only survivors of Princess Luna’s betrayal at the hooves of Nightmare Moon. The thousands of followers who had followed our beloved Princess of the Night had supposedly been transformed into forms just as obscene and terrifying as the little foal, who had just put a tiny hoof into its bowl of mashed peas.
And then Celestia claimed Luna had killed them, all but a few small foals.
It was a lie! Princess Luna would never have turned against Equestria as Celestia had said. Luna had flown by my side through the Dreamscape from the first time I had become a Dreamer. Night after night, we had vanquished the Nightmares of the Dreaming and sent them far away into the shadows. My friends and family had been her most fervent supporters, and now they were all gone, destroyed by Nightmare Moon.
Just like my daughter.
The Princesses were equal in their power. On her own, Celestia could never have banished our Princess of the Night into her beloved celestial body. By herself, Princess Luna could have defeated any Nightmare, even one who called herself Nightmare Moon.
Through eyes slitted by rage, I watched the murderous beast, sitting in a high chair by the side of its deceived ‘parents.’ What dark pacts must Celestia have forged with Nightmare Moon to betray us? What must the beast have thought when it was caught up in the spell and banished to the moon as well? Betrayer and betrayed, trapped forever in the shackles placed upon the moon by the Elements of Harmony, with only the smallest fragments of its evil still free to carry out whatever dark plans it harbored.
The tiny creature in the high chair ignored my rage, happily putting a second hoof into its bowl of mashed peas and laughing at the mess that resulted while the two bleary-eyed pegasi to its sides made busy with napkin and burp rag in a futile attempt to stem the tide of pulped vegetables that spilled out over the edge of the high chair and onto the restaurant floor.
“Dreamy? Please calm down. Others are staring.” My husband of more than twenty years gently patted me on the hoof before I yanked it back, fuming in silence at his betrayal.
“Calm down?” I lowered my voice to a hiss as the surrounding diners flickered little looks of irritation at me and whispered behind their wings. “How can you expect me to calm down with that… thing sitting over there.”
I wanted to gesture, to stand and point an accusatory hoof at the monster before leading a mob with torches and cloudforks to burn its taint away from the city of my birth. To my growing fury, the creature ignored me and continued its destruction of the high chair tray, smearing mashed peas into swirls and adding a squirt of juice from its sippy cup.
...
Aside from the Training Ground, I'm already tuned into all of the signals you're boosting. As such, I encourage everyone who isn't to rectify that situation.
And yeah, you did kind of do the same thing as with E.P.T. Honestly, I think it's more other people's problem that they aren't familiar with your work.
Holy crap, Georg, have mercy! I'm still trying to finish your Nocturne series!
[edit]
That said, if you need any assistance of the prereading kind on Lollipops, you know where to find me.
*totally not an attempt to get two chapters ahead of everyone else*
lolipops Yay
New beginning looks good. I'll reread the rest in a bit.
Also, the story hadn't been added to the Writeoff Association group yet. Fixed!
That, or you could just specify it's a part of that. In fact, that's generally a good idea, because you could just as well write a Nightmare Moon related story that's completely different from that canon. It's nice to tell your readers which stories are related
Also, If I'd known how closely your Nocturne and Travelling Tutor stuff was related I'd have tackled that other branch ages ago