Double the Batponies - Double the Fun (Sneak Peek of Royal Exam) · 3:07am Oct 23rd, 2015
I've got two batpony stories coming out in the next week. First for the Writer's Group Halloween Competition - City of Monsters
Dee was a very brave batpony who always obeyed her Mama, but every year during the full moon, when the leaves began to change and the cold winds blow, she felt the tug of a city far, far away, where the other children told of monsters who came out to play for one night. This year she is determined to travel all the way through the forest to the city and see with her own eyes just what is so special, no matter how dangerous the trip is, no matter how far she has to fly, or how frighteningly different the monsters are.
Or how similar.
Child of Nightmare and Everfree
When a frantic Night Guard seeks help in finding his lost daughter in the middle of the Everfree Forest, he finds that only Fluttershy is willing to guide him on his dangerous quest. But as they search, they find far more than they expected, and in the end, he may be forced to accept the painful reality that the daughter he seeks may not want to return with him.
The only thing in the Everfree Forest more frightening than a father trying to find his lost daughter, is a mother who does not want to let go.
I'm still a little wobbly about the title for 'Child of Nightmare and Everfree' but I'll stick with it. 'Child' is going to be straight bribery-writing. Only the first chapter is going up now (due to the season). The rest of the chapters will be written and posted as I get time or if people beg me enough to change my priorities. Currently, I have quite a bit of writing work to do, including:
Writeoff.me contest starting this weekend.
Getting done with The Traveling Tutor and the Royal Exam (6 chapters cached, and up to 20 hours before the wedding)
Getting the last chapter in the recent arc done for Letters From a Little Princess Monster (No Rainboom this arc. Yes Rainboom next arc.)
Working on Buggy and the Beast (no cover art yet, hint, hint)
Progressing on Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies (EiH fic that is going slow, because I have to mesh it with the real world. Darned reality.)
Two Never the Final Word submissions that are vague ideas now.
And getting started on Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons.
And just to let you know I'm still working on Royal Exam, here's a snippet:
* ♥ *
Earlier this morning...
Princess Luna drifted up the stairs to her bedroom on the very tips of her hooves, making less noise than a blowing tuft of thistledown. Dawn was only a few moments away, which would be the perfect time for the thick curtains to her room to be parted ever so slightly and a beam of her sister's bright sunlight to swing over Luna's huge heart-shaped bed right as she made her entrance. The two young lovers would be caught in flagrante delicto in her bed, which would be the perfect time to 'suggest' that their impending legal union should be presided over by the Princess of the Night.
Celestia got to have all of the fun. This wedding would be held in the Garden of Night, as nature intended.
With a silent spell, Luna cracked the door open and listened first, just in case the young lovers were more active than expected, and her morning surprise would have to be delayed. Since a near silence broken only by faint snoring was the only thing she could hear, she peeked inside, anticipating that the young unicorn and pegasus would be curled up under her silken sheets, limbs entwined and covered with a certain amount of perspiration from their nocturnal activities.
Instead, the bed appeared completely untouched, with even the foil-wrapped chocolates on the pillow still in their little golden pyramid.
Luna frowned, slipping around the door and tiphooving through her bedroom. A certain annoying somepony had certainly used her offered key to gain access to the room this evening, as the trapspell had notified her of the intrusion, and it had been extremely difficult to hide her knowing smile in the middle of the very serious business she was attending to. The strong wafting odor of jasmine led her to the bathroom, where she stopped in bemused consternation.
The custom-built preening table which Luna had purchased with her own funds had been shortened to the extent of its adjustable panels, but Crosswind still looked a little like a foal on an adult-sized bed as she sprawled out across it, wings spread, legs extended, tail hanging almost bonelessly behind her and face-down into the pillow with a faint and repetitive snore. Her coat fairly glowed with bath oil, hoof-rubbed and brushed to perfection, while her wings glistened with the expensive Prench preening oil that Luna had received as a gift upon her return from the moon, and that she suspected had been gifted to Celestia many decades ago first. The room did not simply smell like jasmine, but was nearly a solid block of multiple flowery scents that flowed above the floor and lapped in little waves around Luna's nose. A scattering of feather-picks and preening combs lay scattered around the floor, forming a rough circle around a oil-splattered green unicorn who had apparently fallen asleep while leaning against the preening table. A vast majority of the small bottles of oil Luna had received as gifts were arranged in a neat square to one side, as if they were military figures to be called forth to battle from their formation, and only returned when depleted of their contents. The two of them had obviously bathed, possibly multiple times from the number of wet towels scattered across the room, and Papercut's fairly short mane had been the subject of an Attempted Braiding With Extenuating Circumstances assault, evidenced by the little knots and curls that remained.
Luna reversed her path, pausing only to open the window to air out the room and spread the curtains wide to act as a solar-powered alarm clock, before slipping out the door. She barely managed to make it down two flights of stairs before collapsing against the wall in peals of laughter.
Cause Thestrals are AWESOME!
Papercut and Crosswind are an incredibly cute couple.
A lot to look forward to, and I certainly am. Here's hoping you find enough time to get all of this done.