Teaser (Now Two!) · 5:54pm Aug 7th, 2018
"Hold up, hold up.” Hunter held up his hooves once more, and the group stopped, though they were all still looking at him with expectant eyes. And I get to tell them what’s happened. Great. As if they haven’t had enough shocks for the day. “Who’s in charge?” he asked. “Not the Order, but locally. There has to be some kind of local leadership or somepony you all turn to, right?”
“That would be me.” The voice belonged to the stallion that had spoken up earlier. “Unofficially. Sterling Garnet.”
“Right.” How to put this. “I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Garnet. All of you, really. That brief ‘blip’ you all had? Where the whole outside world went bodgy? That was … a sealing spell.”
“What are you saying?” one of the ponies asked. “Were the Princesses protecting us from Sombra?”
“Ah … sort of?” You’re doing a terrible job at this. “Look, that whole battle you remember? From just a few minutes ago? Between the Princesses and Sombra?” He glanced around at the group, taking in their harried expressions. Just say it. “Yeah … that was about thirteen-hundred years ago.”
Oof. Quite the bomb you just dropped, Hunter.
Boom! And the world spun forward yesterday into tomorrow. There was no today.
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Yeah, it occurs to me that I've never seen another story tackle this issue. "Hello, you just lost over a thousand years and skipped forward in time!" It's no wonder that the crystal ponies are so catatonic in the season 3 opener, between being downtrodden and having just completely lost the world they knew. Most of them are in shock.
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I was working on a story "Puppet's Shadow" that was all about that issue. I just happened to fall down the "I'll get to it latter as life engulfs me in chaos" hole.
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Well, there's this one: A Pony Displaced: Another Path. The adventures of a guardspony who got trapped in the moon with Nightmare Moon, came back with her, and was here when the Crystal Empire returned, allowing him to connect with the recruits that he thought that he'd lost. There is a sequel that is more about their reintegration to society.
I'm glad you posted this, because I thought of something while looking at it that I feel silly for not thinking before; I'm going to append the Dusk Guard stories to my reading list because I know you're a good writer and it's a good opportunity to
absorbstudy your writing style. Just as soon as I finish the last 280k words in this 1m-word-long story I'm still reading…