Oh lookie! Status update! · 6:58am Jun 29th, 2015
Presently, I am just over 3000 words into the next chapter. Oddball Evenings will actually take the Ch22 spot and bump Make Us Proud into the Ch23 slot. Funny chapter that causes much haha, starting with Cadence, doing things for reasons. I hope to have the next chapter done by the end of the week, depending on how I feel with editing and review. Really need an editor/proofreader for this stuff. I'm really starting to love working with Cadence when she's being silly. She's fun because she's funny crazy...and a deviously smart actress as needed about everything she does... Oh, and there's a somewhat mysterious hint from Shining Armor about who's in the coming squad of Guards being assigned to Vojin and the Bearers. It is an OC of course, but it's still a hint. 
Also have a fair chunk of the last chapter to Book 1 already written, though I have to get some stuff in the preceding chapter settled in order to properly complete the whole thing, due to the events planned in that second to last chapter. The title will be 'The Weight Of Implications' and is foreshadowing and alluding to a TON of things to come across the entire storyline, on multiple levels, even to book 5 when it all finally ends. I'm reasonably sure at this point that it will be 5 books, too. I wonder if anyone will figure out even half the stuff I'll be doing along the way. After the main story is over, I'll have various things to do for the appropriate characters still alive.
And yes, that is confirming there will be characters killed. Not the Bearers or royals, due to how things will be laid out in the last couple chapters it will make sense why, but characters of the story will die in a couple points. Of other canon ponies, there will be chance of death. Of OCs, two majors will die in very sad ways. One, a tragic, noble end that will probably make people cry with the one most affected by their death. The other, a necessary hard choice that will make sense in the context. That's the most I'll explain, considering how huge a spoiler anything more would provide.
I have a lot of stuff planned, and a lot of it is going to surprise. Also, two things to remember with Protecting Harmony: I don't believe in coincidences for major parts of the story, and wording can be very specifically chosen...
