Welcome to the Herd! · 3:34pm Aug 19th, 2012
The room was completely dark, save for one patch of light where a particularly bright lamp had been switched on. Within that patch of light sat one lone person, surrounded by a mess of various papers that had red markings all over them.
"Must... organise... Chinese file... and study for my Biology test... and that Geography exam... and get ready for that project meeting... and..."
The person glanced at the digital clock that sat atop the pile of papers. Its face proudly sported four zeroes, signalling the end of the day. A sigh echoed throughout the room.
"Maybe it's a bit late. I should get to bed... or..." His gaze flicked to a particular darkened area of the room.
"Or maybe I should de-stress a little. It's not like I have anything important tomorrow anyway."
He raced over to the corner of the room and flipped his laptop screen open, revealing all of the tabs that he had been too lazy to close. Opening a new one, the person began to type letters into the address bar.
"www... .fimfiction... .net..."
He sat down on his seat before the glowing screen, waiting for his laptop to process the order (agonisingly slowly in his opinion) and when the front page initialised, he skipped straight to his blog page and began typing.
At his fingertips, whole universes flared into existence.
"Usurper."
The cloaked figure atop the throne-cushion looked around, alarmed, before realising the identity of the speaker. "Author."
I see that you made some... adjustments to the throne room." The author observed.
"Nothing too major." The figure replied, surveying the newly-painted black walls, with decorations of a darkened hue occupying the space in the room.
"Everything used to be yellow, red and orange."
"Yes, but I needed to remind everypony that I am now the one in charge, not Superfire." The figure shrugged. "Besides, I like the colour black. Everypony thinks that darkness is evil, ominous, dangerous, the like. It's gravely misunderstood by most ponies. It reminds me of myself sometimes."
"I see." The author replied. "Well, at this point, all of my few faithful readers will probably guess that you're Luna."
"Except I'm not." The figure scoffed. "Don't they have better things to do than to guess my identity?"
"Apparently, yes." The author responded. "Anyway, let's get the official business done first. The Prince left some... loose ends when he died."
"Oh? What are they?"
"Let's just say that he had a meeting scheduled a few days ago on a date in the future."
"When is this meeting?" The figure seemed curious now.
"Well... in five minutes' time, apparently. You might want to prepare." An observant tone entered his voice.
"You tell me now, author?"
"Apologies." He replied sheepishly. "Nonetheless, it would indeed be prudent to get ready. Though, according to my notifications, this meeting shouldn't be too draining."
"What is the meeting about?" The figure asked.
"Hold on, let me check this... oh, yes, that's right! It's the ambassador from another nation."
"There are other nations?"
"Of course there are!"
"Going by your criteria for a nation, author, every single writer, brony or not, can be considered to have a nation of his or her own, which means that the number of different countries can easily reach up to-"
The author interrupted. "I prefer to think of the others as... busy markets, where ponies go to sample their wares and decide whether it's worth their favourite, track, like, or encouraging comment."
"Then how are we any different from them?" The figure inquired.
"You don't want to be unique? That's fine with me!" In an instant, the surroundings of the darkened throne room shifted into that of a surprisingly deserted marketplace, with rotting goods on the shelves and the occasional tumbleweed making its way through the streets.
The figure sighed. "I suspect you're being a bit... pessimistic about your current status with your readers, author."
"I am not!" The throne room reappeared almost immediately. "I am only being realistic."
"Really?" The figure sounded exasperated. "I'm pretty sure that your readers think your stories are better than decomposing items, and you definitely have at least one pony who is following your stories excitedly."
"Believe what you want to."
"Hold on." The figure paused. "How long have we been talking?"
"I'd say at least five minutes. Why?"
"And the meeting was in..."
"Five minu-" The author stopped. "Oh. Well, I see your point. At least the ambassador isn't here ye-"
"Your majesty!" A guard called from outside. "The ambassador has arrived!"
"I will receive him now." The figure replied, before turning to stare angrily at wherever he/she/it perceived the author to be.
"Sorry?" The author offered.
"Never mind." The figure growled. "Can you at least tell me whose ambassador I'm dealing with?"
"Why not? The ambassador is from my new brony friend, whose username is, quite conveniently, 98friends."
"Wow. I can't imagine how his representative must feel with such a queer name."
"Uhh... right. Anyway, there's something you should know about the ambassador."
The figure scowled. "It had better not be anything important."
"Well,,, about that..."
"Woah! Nice cloak. Hi, Usurper!"
The figure whipped around at an impressive speed. "Spike?!"
The baby dragon puffed out his chest. "The one and only!" His face suddenly adopted a thoughtful expression. "Say... I've heard your voice somewhere before..."
"I doubt it." The figure finally regained composure, which involved the usage of a voice disguise spell. The raspy voice that resulted from the hasty spellcasting grated slightly on the figure's ears.
Spike shrugged. "If you say so."
"Can we just get down to business?"
"Okay." The purple dragon pulled out an impressively long scroll from the brown satchel he wore, allowing it to unroll itself until the tip of the parchment made contact with the door at the far end of the throne room.
"Ahem." Spike cleared his throat. "Pleasantries first. The noble ruler 98friends has formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Usurper over this land, and has sent his ambassador to greet the Usurper and to open trade deals in the future."
"Yes, yes, I acknowledge the power of 98friends over his land, and his country's legitimacy as a sovereign nation, yadda yadda yadda, so on and so forth. What's next?"
Spike began to roll up the extremely long scroll until he reached the end. "That's it. We're done."
"Wait, what do you mean, we're done?" The figure asked. "How can that be all on that long scroll?"
"The rest of it was just in case I wanted to add something." Spike answered.
The cloaked figure responded with a facehoof.
"Oh wait, there's a little bit more on the end of it." Spike read the bottom of the scroll carefully. "The ruler 98friends requests a collaboration with the Usurper in the form of inter-fiction support and... uh..." The baby dragon squinted, trying to make out the tiny words scrawled at the bottom of the scroll. "... poem trading."
"Poem trading?" The figure brought a hoof to his/her/its chin. "Seems legitimate. Approved."
"Okay. Now we're done." Spike turned and began to head towards the door at the end of the throne room.
"I wish you and your ruler good luck for the future." The figure replied, accidentally dropping the voice disguise spell a bit too early.
Spike's arms, in the midst of pushing the huge doors of the throne room open, stopped as his eyes widened in recognition. "Oh, I know that voice! You're-"
"GET OUT!" A powerful telekinetic burst pushed the purple dragon through the now-open doors, and another magical pull closed the doors with a loud bang.
The figure sank onto the floor, panting heavily from his/her/it sudden magical exertion.
"You know, considering that that was done without any preparation whatsoever, it went quite smoothly."
"YOU!" The figure screamed. "I'M JUST A TOY FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, AREN'T I? WELL, I'M GOING TO GET YOU, YOU FU-"
The person paused. Do I really want to type the next part?
The laptop screen closed with a click.
Well, I suppose it's time to go to bed.
The alarm clock on the pile of papers rang.
The person grimaced. I suppose karma applies for mistreating fictional characters, too.
Basically what the story said. After 8-9 months, I have actually managed to convert someone to the herd. Granted, that was a few weeks ago, and not a few days, but he just finished watching all of the episodes a week ago. So let's give 98friends a big hand!
[*round of applause*]
Now let's have one for me!
[*silence*]
Sigh...
I believe that this is the right time for some shameless advertising! Firstly-
SHUT UP!
Anyway, I can't say that he's as good a writer as some of the brilliant ones out there, but he is quite good at writing poems, which unfortunately, are way too short to meet the 1000 word requirement for fimfiction stories. That does exist, right? Or am I just mistaken?
If I'm not wrong, (which I don't think I am) there will soon be an arrangement involving his poetry, my blog, and new blog stories featuring the Usurper and other tortured or soon-to-be-tortured characters! Yay!
By the way, I hear that a new assassination may be in order. But will it affect my nation, or someone else's?
Only time will tell.
Once again, good luck, and may the power of friendship and magic be with you.
Hi again! and May I say hi to 98friends too? Poems? Well you can always write a epic tale spanning multiple poems... but at 1000 words? Don't know. (I haven't got the guts to write fanfiction. They ideas, yes, but as soon as a see that great white space and I even think about placing within it the characters names I cringe and move away from the computer. Gee... I really hope that's not a bad sign. What did fanfiction ever do to me? )
Anyway good luck to both of you... or all of you... It's been a long day for me so my Meta-reader is a little low on fuel, So I'll just shake my head and nod.
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Sure you can say hi to him. In fact, he could be reading this page right now. Or he might not be. Whatever the case, I'm pretty sure he'll respond as soon as he can.
And writing fanfiction isn't something that can be done at any time. It requires inspiration, most of which I acquire from great stories and music that inspires me to write my fanfictions while hoping that it will somehow worm its way to the featured box.
Well, good luck to you too with whatever you're doing. If you ever write fanfiction, I'll be eager to read it.
Seriously...no seriously?! When u said read ur blog stories, i didn't think u would write such and awesome story!!!!! Great Job!!!!
Oh and hey rookee alding. Cant wait to read a story by u!