Stay Determined: Sequel Blog Two

...It's really been two years, huh? I guess that makes it time for another update. The state of the story is this: it's still happening. It's still going to be a while... but a year less than it was going to be when I posted the last update blog. And I don't mean that in the sense of me sitting around and doing nothing for a year. It's been getting time to cook, and it needed it.

During my last update blog, I mentioned I had gotten things together and started writing a rough draft. Writing that lasted for about three months, wound up totaling about 40-50k, and made one thing apparent above all else: I had no ideas whatsoever for Starlight's friends' character arcs. The world itself I liked. The ending, even more so. But everything in between just became Starlight walking in a straight, uneventful line from Point A to Point B, and I eventually had to stop when I realized I had nothing and wasn't going to get any remotely compelling characters by throwing featureless names at a wall and hoping one would stick. Because at the end of the day, the story I had made for Starlight was only about her, and the world it was set in was only there to service that story and no others. It worked great for the original, where Starlight's friends were faceless bodies because all she could see were her own ideals, but that's bad for a broader adventure where the world that's being held hostage to time is about everyone else in it, too.

That took a while. Who were Starlight's friends? What did they want? What even was there to want in a bleak, featureless wasteland like I had slated for the story in the first place?

Well...

Something slammed my chest, jolting me back into consciousness and expelling a large amount of fluid from my lungs. Gasping and coughing, I struggled for air, becoming aware that I had almost drowned and was probably going to be alright.

"Starlight!" Watercress's face loomed immediately over me mixed with relief and concern, her forehooves ready to pump my chest again. Her fur was dripping, just as soaked as mine felt.

"I'm alive," I hacked, aware enough to become concerned for my other friends. "Not my favorite experience. Where are...?"

Nearby us, there was another commotion. "Come on, you stupid mare," Azure panted, leaning down and blowing air into a sodden body's mouth while blocking her nose with her wingtips. "Wake up, wake up, wake up! You can't die on-!"

Below her, when she started pressing again, there was finally a sputter of coughing and weak movement. "Azure!" I groaned. "Nonchalance...!"

My friend slowly came back to life, probably feeling even worse than I did. But we were all here. Everyone had made it out alive.

A few minutes passed while I got my bearings and Azure alternated between hugging and scolding and Watercress did everything she could to ensure the three of us were alright. Eventually, as the trickling of our fur slowed to a dribble and then a drip, Nonchalance sat up, her breathing starting to stabilize, and asked the obvious question.

"So... where are we?"

"Inside the ether pipe," Watercress said, standing straight and taking a speculative tone. "I suppose it's futile to ask if you drank any, but..." She pointed down the tunnel to a disc of light about a hundred paces away. "It seems we're mercifully close to the entrance."

"I have tried it before," Azure informed her, her cool composure starting to return. "I will be fine."

Nonchalance just looked with interest at the tiny trickle of liquid sitting in the bottom of the pipe.

Personally, I didn't get what the fuss was about, but Watercress and Azure seemed fine and if they needed to help Nonchalance, I could walk on my own. Standing shakily, I followed along as we all made our way to the entrance.

"Ashbreak," Watercress murmured as we reached the lip and the outside world came into view. "Mmm. That's quite a view."

Far above us, the cloud sea roiled and churned, white lightning crackling in sheets and bolts as the dark barrier boiled, sending down plumes of ashen mist that faded and cascaded back up into itself. By some twist of fate, we had arrived when visibility was the greatest: ashbreak, the point in the clouds' cycle when their eternal rain of ash dwindled to nothing and allowed us to see the world as it really was. And this was farthest I had ever been able to see.

"That's the ether sea, isn't it?" Nonchalance pointed downward, where equally far below an endless plateau of liquid reflected the clouds, no wind to stir it or break its mirrorlike image. Both it and the clouds stretched forever into the distance, only ended by the sheer mountain wall where cliffs rose past the sky and formed the edge of the world.

"It is," Watercress told her, stepping to the very rim of the pipe with me and looking around. Our tunnel protruded from a cliff face on the near shore, stretching upward to flat land well below the clouds. I could see many other pipes like ours nearby and in the distance, most pouring rushes of ether that drained in waterfalls into the sea. "And there..." She guided my eyes to the side. "Is something I think you'll be most interested in."

Above the sea, suspended in midair, there was a floating island. I saw no indication of what powered it or held it in place, and its sole purpose was the foundation of a tower: dark, slender and impossibly tall, its summit nearly high enough to touch the sky. My eyes did their best to focus despite the distance, but it almost looked like the structure was hanging from the clouds instead of supported by nothing.

"Is that...?" I breathed.

"I told you I'd show you it someday," Watercress murmured, approval in her tone. "That tower is older than civilization itself... ours, at least. Translating the writings within has been the life's work of many, and there are still many unknowns. Perhaps it predates the end of the world, or perhaps it was constructed after. What's clear is that it was once intended to be a prison, and every explorer ever to make the flight has found nothing there."

"Even at the top?" I frowned.

"Even at the top," Watercress agreed, "where the winds of the cloud sea are strong and destruction is hooflengths away. The writings we've translated speak of a terrible monster that could end the entire world, and some think it's still there, hidden too well for us to see until we accidentally unleash it and push this world the rest of the way into oblivion. Others believe it already escaped, and is the reason the world today has sunken so far from the Equestria of our dreams. That the tower is nothing more than an empty prison."

Nonchalance gave a knowing smile. "But neither of those are the reason why we're all here."

Watercress nodded encouragingly. "The one I find most hopeful. That the tower is the gateway, and this whole valley is the prison. That it is still sealed, and contains the way home."

"To Equestria." Azure nodded. "The mountaintops. The land above the clouds."

As the first few flakes of ash resumed their fall, already blurring the cliffs in the distance, I nodded along, having finally seen the focus of my friends' determination. "Does it have a name?"

"The tower? It once did, but has been defaced multiple times." Watercress's ears fell. "Likely, it was once a castle built by the princesses described in murals elsewhere in the world: the Princess of Hopes and the Princess of Dreams. Now, there's only one inscription remaining we have been able to translate. All that castle is known as now is Her Tower."

I think this excerpt says a lot of the things I'd want to say in a progress blog much more succinctly (and interestingly) than just rambling about those things themselves. Here are Starlight's friends, her world, her mission: the land exists as a mountain valley blanketed in an endless rain of ash, cut off from the skies above by a violent barrier of clouds that will rebuff or tear apart anyone trying to fly past. Legends speak of a mountaintop world above the clouds, the paradise of Equestria, and it's everyone's dream to somehow open a way through the clouds... yet there's still the Princess of Time and her tower fortress. It's still the same story as it was once upon a time, just greatly reimagined.

When will it be here? A while. There's still a lot of continuity details I have to smooth out in the outline as a result of the changes for adding Starlight's friends, so while a great many of the individual scenes are good and set, the story as a whole has some coming together to do. And I want to finish this story entirely before I start publishing, and run it past prereaders and editors to make sure it will be absolutely as good as it can be. That's probably going to involve some major revisions. But at the very least, I promise another update blog next year, and by then I hope to have a good chunk of it written.

Here's to never giving up.

Comments

[Csquared08]

I remain excited. And patient, I guess.