Been a While Update · 7:32am Jan 28th, 2021

So. Yeah. Been a while. Figured now would be a good time to give some sort of update on projects and suchlike. Make sure people know I'm alive. And still writing horsewords.

So the holidays have come and gone, and what do I have to show for it? About 50-75% of a All These Midnight Days chapter, though in a bit of a state of disrepair. Essentially, there's three major "Scenes" planned for the chapter, and I only realized after the second one refused to work that I needed to swap them around and pop one minor scene in, to break up all that angst and existential despair.

Also, I've completed a new chapter for The Legend of Trixie. It's currently awaiting a round of editing and pre-reading from some wonderful people who've said they can help me with that. I'm not... 100% sold on the pacing near the end, but that's why I need editors. It's also sitting pretty at 14,000 words.

So... hopefully you guys are hungry for more Trixie?

All other projects are on hold until I can get more headway on Trixie and Midnight. Yes, including the Zap Apple story, which... has hit logistical road bumps. Namely, deciding who the main character is, and which chapter to start with. There's one big one done, from Rainbow's perspective, but I'd probably have to cut the opening for it to stand alone... and I don't want to. The opening is nice, fun, and has a big old Anarchy cameo.

In fact... ya'll deserve something for putting up with my awful personality and scarce writing. Here's that opening. For free!

Rainbow Dash missed her old life, somedays. Sleeping in late. Busting clouds in between naps and lunch. Wonderbolt practice for the rest of the afternoon - assuming she wasn’t kicking flank on some crazy adventure with her friends - and then warm cider with Applejack before tucking back in for a killer dream about fighting more bad guys.

Yeah. A good life.

There were some advantages to her life now, however. And it wasn’t like all the stuff from before wasn’t still true today. Sure, she had to wake up at the crack of dawn to help with the chores before practice. But she also got to wake up in the warm embrace of a hard-headed cowpony she loved more than anything else. Cloud-pillows were soft. But the hard muscles of an Apple were so much more supportive.

Getting her own cider ration was also a nice bonus to marrying into the family. Couldn’t lie about that. Couldn’t lie about a lot of things, being married to a living lie detector.

Still, waking up at dawn wasn’t easy. The rooster’s crow was a harsh alarm clock.

Which was why, on this particular morning, Rainbow became concerned when the first sliver of sunlight peeked through her bedroom window, and hit her face… in utter silence.

“Huh?” She slowly lifted herself up from her bed, careful to disentangle herself from Applejack without waking her. As Autumn went on, AJ would need to wake up even before the sun most mornings, so Dash didn’t like to cost her wife any more sleep than she had to now.

Rainbow’s ears twitched. Alright, there wasn’t no sound. Just… not a rooster sound.

It sounded like somepony was clearing their throat.

And then, the yodeling started.

Rainbow Dash, eyes still half-shut, dragged herself over to the window, and opened it with an annoyed grunt.

What she saw… defied description.

“Dashie?” a groggy, folksy voice piped up from the bed, “What’s goin’ on?”

Well, crap. Guess I gotta give describing it a shot then.

“Anarchy.”

Applejack waited a moment. And another. When no further explanation was forthcoming, she trudged her own way over to the window.

“D’ye mean anarchy, like… somethin’ crazy goin’ on? Or ye talking ‘bout Fluttershy’s… what the hay?”

There was an apple tree directly across from Dash and Applejack’s window, right where the corner of the southeast orchard met the front yard of the farm proper. Jeremy, Granny had named it, almost fifteen years back. It was a good tree, always providing its fruit, come rain or shine, on time and without complaint.

Right now, however, it was playing host to something… downright weird.

Atop the tree sat a singular figure. A butter-yellow pegasus filly with a bright-pink mane. A little on the thin side, all told, and quite familiar-looking. But this wasn’t Fluttershy. Oh, it was half her, to be sure. But what with the blue bat-wings, the fluffy white eyebrows, the crimson and yellow eyes…

Anarchy was cute, in a sort of horrifying, Ponequus Princess of Chaos sort of way.

So, it was Ann who sat atop Jeremy. And she was fully dressed in lurid green lederhosen. As the sun rose, slowly, over Sweet Apple Acres, this strange, pony-draconequus hybrid, the child of Kindness and Chaos… serenaded the morning with a yodel that would make a grown mountain-stallion weep.

Trouble was, so were the apples on Jeremy. They harmonized well; Rainbow couldn’t deny that. Though, while she stared, uncomprehending at the sight of an all-apple yodeling choir, Applejack turned her eyes down towards the ground.

Sugar Mac, Big Macintosh and Sugar Belle’s son, and Applejack’s nephew, was sitting beneath the tree, playing a washboard. And right next to him, she could see Cheese Slice Pie blowing on the cider-jug, accompanied by Ann’s charge, the once – and to be honest, still – villainous Cozy Glow, who mostly just glowered at everypony around her. Which included Maud and Mudbriar’s little filly, Petrification Dendrite Pie, or Petra, on the harmonica. The purple filly had a bouncy silver-grey mane that reminded Applejack a little too much of Pinkie Pie most days. Now, especially.

It was all very strange. Very weird.

Chaotic, as it were.

There wasn’t even an explanation for where the horns, accordions, or drum noises were coming from. The bluegrass instruments, it appeared, were doing a fantastic impression of an Oompa band.

“Mondays,” Dash sighed, “Ponyville style.”

Applejack snorted, angrily, “If’’n she does anythin’ funny to poor Jeremy…”

As soon as the performance began, it ended. Anarchy finished off the song with a fantastical trill of her vocal cords, just as the music climaxed. The foals beneath the tree gave a little whoop at the song’s conclusion, which seemed to prompt the apples… the fruit, specifically… to applaud. With what appendages they did this, neither Applejack nor Rainbow Dash could say.

Anarchy smiled sweetly, and gave the two mares a cheery wave. Then, with the sound of a balloon popping, she vanished into a pink flash of light. Cozy, bound to the strange filly by Twilight’s custom custody spell, vanished with her.

“Mornin’ Aunties!”

Dash and Applejack glanced down to their niece and nephews, who were now waving up at the window as well.

Sugar smiled, completely oblivious to the look his Aunts were throwing his way.

“Lookit! Cheese an’ Petra came te visit!”

Applejack sighed. And then, she shut the window. The Apple matriarch looked to her wife, and the two mares shared a long, hard look.

“It’s gonna be one of those days, ain’t it?”

Rainbow Dash, blinking slowly and wondering if there was any amount of coffee that could possibly wake her up at this point, just shrugged in utter defeat.

“Eeyup…”

...See ya'll later, Space Cowponies!

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