BGH: What Comes Next · 7:21am Jun 20th, 2018
Howdy, folks. Loyal Here.
It's been a bit with BGH done now, and hopefully people have had a chance to catch up. This isn't a retrospective or a "here's what I learned" blog post; that might come later.
This is shameless hype farming.
This is where I talk about Tales from Everfree City.
I think I'll start with a preview:
Oh, one note first. I censored this because blog posts don't have as good of tagging as fics do and I don't want to run afoul of the rules if I can help it. But it is Gale dialogue, so you can trust the final product will be less ham-fistedly restrained. (Ham-hoofedly?)
Scenes from an Everfree Restaurant, featuring Gray Rain, Tempest Stormblade, Princess Platinum "Gale" III, and anonymous punk who cannot hold his liquor. Oil on Canvas, circa 25 years after Equestria's founding.
When ponies walk up the winding cobblestone path toward the orange plaster walls of my dad’s place, they usually focus on one of two things. The first is that in place of a grass lawn, like most of the rich unicorns on that street, Dad grows hops and barley and all the other crap he needs for his hobby. The second is that he doesn’t usually bother closing the front door, at least during summer. Every once in a blue moon, somepony asks why, and the answer is always the same.
You’d have to be a f*!?ing idiot to try and rob Commander Hurricane.
When I walk home, I usually focus on something different. Inside the front door, hanging on the opposite wall, there’s a wooden rack with six slots. Most days, when it’s empty, it’s not really obvious what it’s intended for.
Today, though, I could count the swords. All three of the usual suspects.
F*!?.
At the top, I saw my big (half-)sister Typhoon’s Heims Osculum; that’s ‘Winter’s Kiss’, if you don’t happen to come from a family where old Cirran is a huge deal. Ty was a huge b!%*ch, so seeing she was at home was always a bad sign.
Underneath it, I saw Tempest’s standard-issue legion sword. Typhoon’s son, and technically my half-nephew, Tempest was a few years older than me, and way the f*!? too lazy to have a magic sword with a cool name.
The last one, though, worried me. That was Procellarum, Dad’s infamous ‘Sword of Storms’. Dad was almost always home, since he was old and retired, but he usually kept the sword in a little hollow behind a painting of his dead first wife that he thought I didn’t know about. The only times he took it out these days were when he needed to make a show, which meant he’d been out looking for me along with everypony else.
I wasn’t given much time to think before the ancient sack of bones called Pathfinder shoved me on the shoulder with a forest green wing. “No point waiting,” the retired soldier added, probably hoping to sound encouraging. It didn’t.
“Yeah, I know,” I told him. Actually walking up the path was another story. But step by step, click after click of my hooves on the cobbles, I walked up to the door.
Mother was sitting there, just in the entryway, where I couldn’t quite see her from outside. The illustrious Queen Platinum, first of her name, was still wearing her elaborate furs and velvets from the day’s court. That suggested she’d left in the middle; yet another thing for her to complain to me about.
“Princess Platinum the Third,” she said, very calmly.
“I know my name,” I told her.
“Evidently, you do not understand what it means,” Mother replied. “Thank you… Pathfinder, correct?”
“That’s my name,” the pegasus answered. “Anything else you need from me?”
“No, sir, but we are as ever grateful for your services. Aren’t we, Princess?”
I glared at her.
“Gale…” Mother warned.
“Oh, sorry; were you talking to me?” I rolled my eyes and glanced to Pathfinder. “Later.”
That was apparently enough for the soldier, who closed the door behind him to leave me in the foyer of Dad’s house.
“Finder, wait—” The owner of the weary voice that carried out of the kitchen was my father. Commander Hurricane rushed into the foyer with as much effort as he could manage before his arthritis stole his energy and his braced foreleg slowed him to a snail’s pace. Still, he found enough energy to stomped a silver-blue hoof on the floor. He sighed after that, and finally he turned to me. “Dinner. Now.”
I knew Dad would do his freaky eye-magic thing if I didn’t listen, and honestly, I just wasn’t as inclined to pick a fight with him, so I tromped down the hall and into the dining room. Two ponies were already waiting there, and a healthy offering of food that had already been dished out waiting for us.
“Honestly, Gale?” Tempest asked, his brighter sky-blue coat not adding much joy to the grim candlelit dinner. “You picked a fight at Grumbles?”
“Morty picked a fight,” I told him. “But if you want to see what I can do, I’ll put your ass on the ground, Tempest.”
“That will not be necessary,” the other pony in the room told me firmly. Typhoon sat directly across from my seat, her badly burnt face not getting any prettier from the stern frown she wore. “Tempest has enough discipline not to find himself in those sorts of situations.”
“No, he just gets caught in every bed in six leagues.” I made the rudest gesture I could manage with my forehooves after sitting down, earning a look of shock from Tempest. “I’m sure you’ll make a f*!?ing fantastic grandma, though, Ty.”
“Is that another fight you want to pick?” Dad asked, right behind me. Before I had a chance to say anything, he reached over my back, grabbing a bowl of asparagus with his one remaining wing and dropping the entirety of it on my plate. “Eat,” he commanded, before moving to his own seat.
As my magic picked apart my my potatoes and asparagus and thrust slice after slice into my mouth, the only sounds were Mother and Dad as they slid into their chairs.
Then everypony just stared at me while I finished eating. Worse, Dad had (probably on purpose) chosen my least favorite food in the entire world, so I’m sure everypony got enjoy the show as I had to slowly force myself to swallow it. F*!?ing awkward for everypony involved.
After one last gulp, I sat back in my chair. “Alright. There.”
What followed was a great deal of quiet. Had it been just Dad, or maybe Typhoon, I would assume it was planned, but I’m pretty sure everypony was just waiting for somepony else to jump down my throat first.
Dad finally started up, after Mother finally broke her continuous silent glare by glancing over at him. “We had to look for you for seven hours, Gale.” The fact was, obviously, true; I had left with Morty before noon, and the meal on the table in that moment was dinner. “Before we continue, I want you to thank Tempest for his time, and apologize to him for the trouble of looking for you?”
“Why the f*!? should he care? He got paid to fly around the city instead of doing real work.”
Typhoon placed one hoof firmly on the table. It was her skysteel prosthetic, replacing a hoof she’d lost in war with the buffalo, magically emanating a constant mist even in the summer heat. She loved dropping it on tables when she was demanding attention.
“I’m glad you realize that having Legion scouts out hunting for you isn’t real work.”
Dad nodded at Ty’s words, and then looked down the table. “Tempest, thank you for your help, from us at least. Go enjoy what’s left of your evening.”
Tempest could not have been out of the room fast enough, and I’m sure he still felt like it took too long.
“Now,” Mother picked up. “Let’s get down to bits, shall we? Princess, how much do you imagine your little ‘date’ cost the crown today?”
At that point, it didn’t matter that Dad was sitting right there; I had to fight her on principle. So I sat, and waited.
Mom was rather patient, but long hours listening to her constant spew of bull*!?t in court, where she loved to make me sit and watch, had trained me well. I insisted to myself that I would not say the next word.
Typhoon broke, though probably not for want of patience. “Believe it or not, Gale, I have other business to attend to today. Or at this point, tonight. Legion business can’t just be put on hold for your little escapades. Answer the question.”
I frowned. “A couple hundred?”
Mom answered by reaching into her cape with magic and pulling out a scroll. A moment later, her reading spectacles followed, resting on the very edge of her silver snout. “The repairs to…” She glanced down at the scroll before looking back up at me. “Grumbles alone will cost us two thousand six hundred bits.”
“How the…” I cut myself as Dad’s brow fell lower. “You mean the wall? That was totally Morty, not me—”
“Yes,” Dad replied, obviously unimpressed. “I’m sure he would have found his way to a bar with a fighting ring without you leading him there. What else?”
“Pay for seven scouts to comb the city when you disappeared,” Typhoon observed flatly.
“Eight,” Dad corrected. “And I pay Pathfinder extra, since he’s retired.”
“I was fine! Remember, I killed an evil f*!?ing ghost-wizard—”
“Language,” Mother interrupted.
“—so I can sure as Hell take care of myself in some stupid bar. If you didn’t want to send out a crap ton of guards, just don’t!”
“Regardless of whether or not you prevailed in your incredibly foolish confrontation with Wintershimmer,” Mother told me, “Gale, you are the heir to the Diamond Throne. When you are unaccounted for, we have to deal with the risk of somepony trying to hold you for ransom, or worse…”
“So what? I’m just never allowed to leave the f*!?ing palace again?”
“Language,” Mother told me.
“I don’t need to be foal-sat by your stupid guards! I’m seventeen, not two!”
“I don’t know if I consider sneaking out and starting a bar fight to be the behavior of someone who has matured enough not to need foal-sitters,” Dad told me.
I snorted a laugh. “Really, Dad? Out of your three kids, I’m the one who’s immature at seventeen? Because last time I checked, I haven’t tried to overthrow the f*!?ing government, and I haven’t been kidnapped—”
A solid three inches of the table were, abruptly, covered in ice from Typhoon’s hoof. She glared at me with unrestrained anger, and then without a word, stood up. It took her the walk to the door to even find words. “Father, Queen Platinum, we will speak later,” she said before disappearing from view, leaving me alone with my parents.
Father looked squarely at me with a level face, his only expression coming from a small knot in the middle of his brow where he seemed to be focusing his emotions. Finally, he sighed, and sat back in his chair. “Gale, you have no idea what your sister went through. Regardless of the point you were trying to make, that was unnecessary and cruel. You’re going to apologize to her tomorrow morning. Then you are going to offer her any service she wants to repay her and the Legion for your behavior tonight, and you are going to do it, no questions asked. Am I understood?”
“...yeah,” I managed. “Sorry. But honestly, are you seriously worried about me?”
“What happened to your siblings is exactly why I’m worried about you, Gale,” Dad told me. “I know exactly what can happen to a seventeen year old who thinks she’s invincible.”
“We only want what’s best for you,” Mother added.
I almost smiled at her entry into the conversation. “Really? Last time I checked, what you wanted was what’s best for you: a perfect little princess you can raise to be a queen who is exactly like you.”
“I have never asked that you be exactly like me, Gale—”
“No? Then how come you insist on calling me by your f*!?ing name?” Mother tried to answer, but I cut her off. “Look, I never asked to be this ‘princess’; I wanted to join the Legion. But since you and Typhoon are having a contest over who has a bigger stick in their ass, you can look in a f*!?ing mirror if you want to know who’s fault Grumbles is.”
“Gale!” Dad shouted. “That is enough!”
After a few seconds of quiet following Dad’s outburst, Mother placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Cane, dear, unless you object, I propose we continue with what we discussed.”
Great. I braced myself. Here comes how insanely I’m grounded.
“Now?” Dad asked.
Mother nodded, earning a shrug. Then she turned her attention on me. “Gale, your father and I have been talking, and we’ve decided on a course of action. Obviously, restricting you to the palace is unrealistic, given Diadem decided to teach you to teleport. And it is clear that requiring you to attend court is only breeding emnity. So instead, we are going to give you some responsibility.”
“Oh,” I muttered. “Great. Is it back to royal tea valet, again, like when I was four?”
“Queen,” Mother answered.
I felt like I’d been slapped across the face. “What?”
“You are going to be Queen,” Mother repeated. “For four days each week, you are going to be Queen. I will stand by to advise you, when and if you will listen, but the power of the crown will be in your hooves. I will only step in if I feel you are making a choice which will result in irreparable damage to Equestria. Furthermore, the remaining three days, you will be under almost no restrictions whatsoever. My only requirement is that if you leave the city, you are accompanied by a companion of either your father’s or my choosing.”
“What? Seriously?”
Mother nodded. “As the grave.”
I admit, I must have stared at her for a solid few minutes in confusion before I nodded. “Okay… so what’s the catch?”
“So I have taught you something?” Mother smiled a bit at her own stupid joke. “This arrangement will go on for two years, or until your actions damage either your own reputation or that of Equestria’s crown so much that I feel the crown must be taken back. At the end of these next two years, if you have managed not to soil the reputation of the crown, you may propose a suitor of your choice, and if your father and I agree, you will be married. However, if I am forced to take back the crown, or if you propose an utterly unacceptable suitor, you will agree to marry whatever pony I choose, and you will bear a foal. Then you will let your husband be Prince-Regent until such a time as your foal comes of age, assuming I pass before the foal grows.”
“What.”
“In summary, Gale, you have two years of freedom and responsibility to either prove that you will one day be a respectable queen, or give up any claim to the title and accept my choice of a husband, so that I can ensure our dynasty carries on.” Mother stood up. “I had intended for you to start tomorrow, but it seems you will be spending that time repairing your relationship with Typhoon. I encourage you spend some effort on it, as she is one third of our triumvirate. And with that, I will leave you with your father; I have some business to conclude with Puddinghead.”
Portrait of the Artist as a Smug REDACTED, by the Archmage Mortal Coil
Titled by Princess Platinum III
In case the above doesn't make it obvious, writing for Tales has begun in full force. I make no promises that this preview will appear un-edited in the final fic (in fact, it's unedited here...).
Tales will be a bit different than BGH, in that it is structured as a sort of an anthology. It certainly won't have terribly many narrators; I'd say Gale and Morty together are 80%, if not 90% of that role. (I did learn something from my prior writing...) But it isn't all Morty. And, though it has a couple of unifying conflicts, it will tend to be a bit more episodic, with small arcs and a bit more joviality. After all, nopony is being chased around early Equestria on a rather literal witch hunt this time.
That being said, I want very badly for Tales to come out with some sort of regularity, like the once- or twice- a week I eventually got going for BGH. Speaking utterly frankly, that's far and away the best way to build interest in a fic. And I have no particular shame in admitting that I thrive on that kind of interest and attention.
I have something to say about how that relates to Morty in BGH, but we'll save that for another blog post.
In order to update once or twice a week, I basically have to get the entire fic ready. And, though Tales' looser format is easier from a plot perspective than BGH and its really intricate magical foreshadowing and exposition-dispersion, it's still a lot of words to write when I'm not in college (and skipping 3/4s of my classes every day), and I have a real job and a real life.
So all that is to say: in the time between, I do have a few things to keep momentum alive and build up the fic.
Every couple weeks or so, I'll drop another preview like this. Others will probably be shorter (the above is currently an entire chapter of Tales, as I have it currently plotted out), but you'll get to see some fun hints for where Morty's arc is going as Celestia's student, what Graargh is up to, and possibly a few cameos from Wind & Stone... and maybe another PoL fic too?
If you don't know what "PoL" means, it's a shared universe that includes BGH. I'll give a much more complete description at the end of this blog post for those who care and aren't yet familiar.
On other weeks - maybe once every-other week or so, I'll do something a little fun that I haven't done in a very long time. Namely, character AMAs. I did this once years ago for some of the early PoL fics, and people seemed to enjoy that, so the idea is this: attached to a preview blog post (or maybe a standalone blog post) I'll let you know what character is up next. Post any questions you have in the comments, and we all might get to hear some answers from your favorite BGH heroes (or villains?).
I'll be tagging all these blogs to BGH, so if you're getting this one, you shouldn't need to worry about missing them.
I'll close with a couple bits of miscellaneous tips:
- If you want to chat in something closer to real-time, or you want to follow along with other work in the PoL 'verse, you can join us in The 24th Pegasus' FiMFic (and ancient Rome) Discord. News on Wind & Stone, Shattered Skies, and even 24's as-yet-only-rumored story about Typhoon and her clash with the buffalo all live there, in the #price-of-loyalty channel.
- In case you haven't read them, I highly recommend the two fics I linked above. I'll also plug another of 24's fics that gets talked about a lot on that discord: Surviving Sand Island. I'm technically an editor for this, in that I edited two or three chapters, but the fact that it updates every day (and is often only finished the day before - or even the day of) means I can't claim any meaningful credit for anything other than a grammar fix or two. Still, it's great work.
- All BGH art, as well as all the art above in this blog post, is by my incredible friend, the amazing and talented Ruirik. Rui's had some trouble with his shoulder recently, which is part of why BGH lost its chapter arts partway through the fic. He's still one of the most talented artists and writers I know, and a great friend besides. When and if I do update BGH with more chapter header arts, I will include it in one of these preview blog posts so everyone knows they can go back and look. Once he has functioning art-limbs, I will probably plug his commissions.
- Since this post was the big reveal of Gale as a narrator for Tales, I figure she's as good a subject as any for our first character AmA. Feel free to post questions here; answers will arrive in a blog post once I can actually be bothered to look up their rules on foul language. Be careful what you ask her if you are offended easily; she told me I was something I probably shouldn't repeat when I suggested she "restrict her vocabulary" for Q&A purposes.
- In case you haven't heard of it, The Price of Loyalty is a fanon universe - sort of like "Winningverse" or shudder "The Beanis Cinematic Universe". The stories aren't necessarily a direct narrative progression, but they feature the same world and some of the same characters. If this is the first you've heard of it, I generally recommend that you start either with Commander Hurricane's story in Of Skies Long Forgotten or a more modern story about Rainbow Dash and Shining Armor in Honor Guard.
- Above all else, thank you all so very very much for your interest, your comments, and for being part of this. I'll probably write a dedicated blog post about it later, but that kind of enthusiasm and interest really does matter to me, and I genuinely appreciate it.
Yours,
Loyal
Gale,
What was the best cuss/long string of swear words you ever threw at somepony? And was it Morty?
I'm looking forward to it.
Will you be coming back to Rainbow dash's saga at any point in the near future? You left so many unanswered questions where you left off.
The hype is real!
Gale, who would you rather have a tea party with, celestia or luna?
Gale, who is the prettiest pony and why is it Morty?
What of the "Finding Morty" sequel fic? Will that be written after Tales?
4916349
That's actually part of Tales, at least as it is currently planned.
4916358
Oh nice!