Carabas Writes #3 - The Enchanted Vikings and The Return of Ragnar · 9:45pm Aug 30th, 2019
In which I whine at Carabas about writing my stories for me again, and he complies and it turns into something wonderful.
Normal color is what I had so far, Carabas is everything in blue.
“Seeking Night is tomorrow!” Rarity screeched, bursting into the Dreamland’s bakery. “And nopony is ready!”
That announced, she made a beeline towards the counter and levitated three cupcakes from the display rack.
Pinkie peeked her out from the kitchen. “Wha—Rarity! Stop eating the cupcakes! Those are for the foals! You already ate six today!”
“The foals aren’t the ones paying you to make these, so I’ll do whatever I damn well—Hey!” At the sight of her cupcakes being forcibly floated away from her, she whipped around and glared at the offending alicorn. “Twilight! That’s my comfort food you’re floating away!”
“Elder Moonshine is here.”
“What?! She was supposed to be here at noon!”
“It is noon.”
“What?!”
Twilight watched with faint amusement as Rarity sped past her towards the main hall, and then carefully placed the cupcakes back on the counter. That done, and after reassuring Pinkie that yes, they were ready, Rarity was just being silly, she made her way back towards the entrance and found Rarity in the middle of a conversation with the elderly mare.
“Of course everypony’s ready, Elder! We’re all just taking care of the final details, as you yourself shall see once Twilight gets here and we leave. She should be here any minute. In fact, why don’t you just wait a moment and I’ll—” She turned around and hollered, ”Twilight Spar—! Oh, there you are. Good. Fabulous. Wonderful! Let’s get this over with.”
Without waiting for either of them to reply, Rarity marched off, past the Dreamland’s front door and out into the town.
“It’ll all be fine,” Rarity said to herself, ‘herself’ encompassing the whole street. Twilight smiled at her as she trotted on and ranted. “Fine, I say. Everything shall go swimmingly if I have to AAAAARGH”
Rarity’s stream of ranting was abruptly cut off by the shadow of a longship that swooped in overhead, belaying lines falling from above, raiders descending and snatching her up, and spiriting her away. The Vikings had this down to a fine art.
Twilight blinked. “Bwuh?” she managed, as the longship sped towards the horizon.
“Gracious,” remarked Elder Moonshine, stepping up to Twilight’s side. “Has Rarity just been kidnapped by Vikings?”
“Glerk?”
“Again?”
“Bwfd?”
“Well, I’d do something about that were I you.”
“Gchk.”
“Go ahead. Don’t wait for me. Creaky joints, you know, I’d just slow you down. Go have fun storming the flying longship.”
“Gwerg!”
***
“Yar, ye be aboard the longship of Ragnar Sharkfucker, Bane o’ the North Seas, and I be demandin’ -”
“Darling, are you a Viking or a pirate?”
“The difference be one o’ - I mean, the difference is minor,” grumbled Ragnar. “What’s a thousand years? We’re on ships, we take things that don’t belong to us, essentially the same. Look, I need help.”
“...Help? You ask me for help after kidnapping me?”
“Yes? Why? How does your culture say ‘hello’?” Ragnar shook his helmeted head. Around them, on the deck, various berserkers and shieldmaidens looked on with concern. “Look, it’s this other warlord.”
“What of him.”
“Thorvald Thunderbreeks. He’s very handsome.”
“I’ll take your word for it, but ...” Rarity closed her eyes and breathed out. “Ah. I’ve just been roped into an affair of the heart, haven’t I?”
“That you have.”
“And you’ve accosted me for … advice? Darling Ragnar, my significant other used to be a ghost I met in a library underground. I’m not sure how much conventional advice I can really give you from a position of authority.”
“No, no, you’re more sort of a … trophy? Treasure? You’re a valued thingumy I’m going to give him as a token of my esteem and affection.” Ragnar looked to his crew for back-up. “All the best Viking romantics say it with magical unicorns, isn’t that so?”
“Aye, that be so!”
“My husband tried to fob me off with a pegasus. Fuckin’ scrub.”
“Are we going to pillage someplace or-”
“Tell you what,” Rarity began, her brain working furiously to devise a way out of this latest bullshit predicament, before salvation suddenly came. It came, as salvation usually did, in the form of Twilight Sparkle hitting the longship’s deck at Mach 10 and gratuitously goring a berserker.
“HAND OVER RARITY AND NOBODY … I mean, NOBODY ELSE GETS HURT!” she blazed.
“Sjkldkj!” concurred the berserker as he dripped off her horn. The Vikings, who knew better than to tussle with an alicorn, drew back reflexively. Ragnar looked heartbroken.
“But,” he started, and then stopped. “But. But Thorvald Thunderbreeks. He’s handsome.”
“Twilight, please,” Rarity said soothingly. “Kidnapped and intended for use as a gift hough I may have been, I can’t help but feel a certain sympathy for Ragnar here. Perhaps we could help him connect with this Thorvald? Help the two of them find love?”
Twilight, when Rarity put it to her like that, could only hesitate for a moment, before conceding. “Oh, okay. Where do we start?”
And after a series of spectacular adventures I shan’t waste your time by describing in full detail, they succeeded, and Ragnar and Thorvald’s wedding bells rang out in due course. The bells belonged to a terrified monastery, watching two matching longships bearing down on it from the seas.
“We did a good thing,” Rarity said, as the smoke began to rise. “Aren’t they such a nice couple?”
“Yeah,” Twilight hesitantly replied. She frowned. “Weren’t we doing something before all that kicked off?”
“Possibly. Does it matter though?”
Twilight smiled. “Not at all.” She leaned in Rarity, and watched the happy new couple do what they did best, with one another.
Meanwhile, in a mountain somewhere.
“Grant her alicornhood, ye said, Celestia. She will make naught but wise and august decisions, ye said. Mineth antiquated haunch, she’s making wise decisions. When’s she going to let me out, for Christ’s sake.”
Fin.
Carabas is too good for us
I lost it at this part. Carabas is too good for this world.
I think my reaction is close to Twilight's at the beginning.
Anybody else need a fully voice-acted version? no? Just me?
edit: soon.
Fabulous.
I think I just sprained a lobe. Ow.
Carabas wins the Internet. I don't make the rules.
I died, this was so beautiful xD
Carabas is brilliant! Whom else would consider Viking raiders to add to a beautiful love/adventure story. They truly are the masters of love and adventure!
And Twilight intimidating a berserker...Yay!
Good story development with the vikings, can't wait to see them help when Discord steals Toothless.
Ah, the classic piece of writing advice: when you've written yourself into a corner and don't know where the story is going, have a Viking with a longship burst through the door.
Amazing.
You know, I recently watched “Aquaman” on HBO, and 4 or 5 times in that film people are having a conversation and are just suddenly ambushed by sea-faring warriors out of nowhere. Little did I know that this was a respected literary device to get one out of any scene in any genre that gets bogged down with writer’s block. Carabas should teach a class on this.
On a tangent, I hope the couple took Thorvald’s last name.
I just... I'm boggled.
5113983
Seconded
Very good piece, plus your avatar is adorable.
Vikings as block-breakers seems a reasonable strategy I wholeheartedly approve of.
He comes from a long and prestigious line of Sharkfuckers. Theres a Sharkfucker in every ocean, and two in the Pacific.