The Rainbow After The Storm

This blog is meant for those who've read A Moonlit Storm. If you haven't yet and want to avoid spoilers, you've been warned!

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So, first ever contest entry. It feels odd, but good. No matter how the judging shakes out, I feel accomplished having taken the prompt and spun a little spy story romp out of it that expands on the alternate universe that The Long Eventide takes place in. I was worried for a while that I wouldn't come in under the word maximum, but I went in with the thought of "focus on the beats that would go into an episode of a TV show" and it squeezed in at 16k.

Not that it's quite an episode of MLP, given the level of violence and the references to blood and death, which is why I upped the rating to T as a precaution. Though making use of a kirin for one of the villains did allow me to sidestep needing to show blood. Thank you self-cauterizing wounds.

FOME's contest isn't the first that I thought about taking part in. But it always was bad timing for my having the time to write an entry--even with this one, I was working well into the night on the last day--or no ideas came to me, at least not ones that would've fit the contest's rules. This one, however, had the elements for A Moonlit Storm coming together in my mind as, well, a perfect storm within a day of seeing it. Then it was just seeing if I could execute it in a short-ish story.

Hopefully those who read it enjoy it, regardless of how it does in the judging.

Setting

Farasi

When I decided to start ponyfic writing, I had to consider what I would do with the comics. Ignoring them outright felt like leaving some interesting ideas on the table, but they contradict the show, and each other, so often that I can and will need to cherrypick what I utilize from them. Species are easy to adapt, specific characters might exist in some capacity somewhere, and locations will be confirmed to exist when I have a story that they'd suit. After all, if I need, in this case, a homeland for the zebras, looking up whether that already exists somewhere rather than starting from wholecloth can give me a framework.

In this case, I liked the way that Farasi mirrored Equestria with zebras, abada, and kelpies coming together the way earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi had, and I ended up throwing donkeys into the mix mostly because I hadn't seen anything canonical for them and the wild ancestors of real life donkeys are found in Africa. Then I considered more species who might make the place home and it snowballed into the kind of location where Night Light could have the epiphany he did at the auction house. Some places are pulling off what Equestria wants to, and currently doing it arguably better. And for a franchise that often made other places into a set piece sitting around for the ponies to solve its problems, I like twisting that around and noting that some places are doing just fine, please and thank you.

Ultimately the Farasi I wrote isn't the Farasi shown in the comics; I painted my own picture of Casabronco and Zebrat, and so the Alternate Universe tag gets a workout in the process. And I will no doubt go back again, because there are plenty of stories that could still be told.

The Storm Kingdom

I like thinking about the home of the Storm King, and what may have led to him taking over it. I had to come up with species names: hedgebeasts for his troops (and also Grubber; I don't know if he's ever been officially confirmed as being the same species as the big guys, but it always felt strongly implied in his design, and so I used his face for a template of what could be under the masks the soldiers wear) and satyrs for his own species (an easy choice, since he seems to be using the similar design philosophy of "swap out humanoid features for simian ones" that MLP's centaurs use). I then considered the kind of movement that could have backed his ascent to power, and so the Thunderstrikes were born.

The Storm Kingdom itself isn't shown on page, and the representatives of it we see aren't the average citizens, but the warmongering fringe. It means that a proper story in the location is yet to come, that shows the nuances. It will likely take its place on the timeline much closer to the movie's events, and the Alternate Universe tag will get a workout there, too. These aren't just faceless lackeys to an evil overlord who sprung out of the ground one day, these are people, and one could say that they were some of the first victims of the Storm War.

But for now, it's an acknowledgement that there are gears turning in the background, and the world is much, much bigger than merely Equestria and its immediate neighbours.

Characters

Night Light

I knew I wasn't going to be the only one touching on Twlight Sparkle's parents for this contest. I predicted that the contest would end up with the majority of stories being a mix of Twilight's parents, Pinkie's parents, and Applejack's family, and so in that sense, I very much followed the crowd instead of going for someone a bit more obscure.

However, I've noticed, at least in the slice of fanfics I've read over the years, that a lot more focus tends to go on Twilight Velvet over Night Light. Some run with her canonical thrill-seeking, some continue to do spins on the old headcanon of her being a writer that came about before we knew that Daring Do wrote her own books, and others just seem to find it more appealing, if Twilight needs to have a conflict with one of her parents, for her mother to be the one she clashes with.

For Night Light... he likes bingo, and that's about all we've got. I've seen some taking the angle of making him an alchemist, researcher, or astronomer, but nothing seems to have stuck enough to be widespread. So, if I was going to have one secretly have done missions for the Crown... why not make it the parent you'd be less likely to expect?

He was initially intended to firmly be the point of view character throughout, but as the outline evolved, Kisu going off on her own required being in her head for a bit, and even if the foreshadowing is about as subtle as an anvil, the reveal that his showing up with the amulet was all an illusion worked better if he was being seen from the outside. Still, it's all things he was told about later, his recollections and old conversations melding together into a reflection on his first artefact retrieval on foreign soil.

Was it also his last? That's a question I'm going to wait to answer.

There's echoes of his children in him. He has a broader magical talent than most unicorns, just like Twilight Sparkle, he can construct shields like Shining Armour, and that fireproofing spell likely came in handy with Spike. He's sharp-minded, kind-hearted, and ultimately wants to leave the world a better place than what it was like when he came into it, but these days he's focused on having a nice retirement playing bingo and spending time with his granddaughter.

Kisu

Her name is a Swahili word for "knife." Something that can be put to use for cooking or for killing, depending on the wielder.

So, I wrote a throwaway line into The Long Eventide, as something of a gag:

"I am, however, also to understand that that entourage included a mare who knew at least seven ways to kill most every sapient species, and so the accusations thrown were not entirely unfounded."

At the time I wrote that, I knew three things: That she was a zebra, that she was of an older generation than the Mane Six, and that I'd probably get back to her when I needed someone for a story about espionage. It just turned out that I would be getting to her sooner than I'd thought.

In Bridle Gossip, Twilight Sparkle is the only one of the Mane Six to recognize that Zecora isn't a pony, and to know what a zebra is. In context, this is because the bit of worldbuilding (and the bit of real-world knowledge that zebras are not just horses with stripes) needs to be gotten across to the (very young) target audience and, well, it only makes sense for the pony who's new in town and hasn't seen Zecora before to have the information. But, taken at face value, zebras clearly aren't a common sight in Equestria that one can whip a small town into such a panic, and while Twilight mentions having read about them and where they came from, it doesn't seem farfetched that she may have been inspired to read and learn about zebras from having been one of few ponies to have met one.

And so, honourary aunt Kisu came together. A story like this could easily be played as a romance, but while the banter occasionally plays with flirtation as part of their cover, ultimately they come out of the other side as lifelong friends instead. Night Light can relate to his daughter a bit, in the bonds that form when you face a villain together, even if Needles and Crimson Flame are no Nightmare Moon.

Kisu is the field agent to his researcher. She's aggressive, she has an arrogant streak, she's a bit more casual about death than is always comfortable for those she speaks with... but she's protective, she knows and thinks about things few creatures want to grapple with the reality of, and she cares. And with a mark for something like handling knives, and a knack for shadow magic, she's making what she believes is the best of it. The darkness trying to shelter the light, and in that way, she and Luna may have common ground if they ever got a chance to talk.

Night Light's a good influence on her. She knows it, too, by the end.

Savannah Sun

I wasn't precisely aiming for "nonbinary abada Pinkie Pie" when I added the role to my outlines, but that's kind of what they turned into. A figurative ray of sunshine who can summon the literal version. I didn't even have a physical description of them until I wrote the first draft and the descriptions of "blindingly yellow" and "hazmat suit hue" sprung onto the page. Don't ask me where the Trottingham accent came from, either, I just thought it'd make sense if they'd spent time in Equestria, wanted it to be somewhere other than Canterlot, and then it clicked together.

They're ultimately a plot device. Greet Night Light and Kisu at the docks, have half of the intel, get grabbed to require a rescue mission. But I also wanted to reflect the range of individuals who could be recruited by Equestria, and someone as gregarious and outgoing as Savannah is very useful in the right circumstances.

I also just really wanted to include an abada. I didn't want all of the Farasi-born characters important to the narrative to be zebras, I love the way that MLP abada are designed and, hey, Dust Devil is canonically nonbinary, sooooo why not make Savannah such as well? It all came together in what I hope was an entertaining package.

Impisi

So this one is a bit more self-indulgent on my part.

Confession time: I really like hyenas. They have an undeserved bad reputation and, if given half a chance, I will work them into anything writing-wise where it'd make sense. So, when Gen 5 leaks were all the rage and this was doing the rounds, well... Seeing hyena-like beings in something even tangentially related to MLP is clearly an open invitation to me.

The species name crocotta comes from medieval descriptions of a mythical creature that most agree these days to have been a hyena, much like how at-the-time descriptions of unicorns now seem very obviously to be referring to rhinos. The warding ability comes from the town of Harar in Ethiopia where the local hyenas are apparently seen as guardians against evil spirits. And then I put that together with a boisterous cook who can throw down when it's necessary, but whose most valuable qualities revolve around providing a safe place to plan and being active in the local gossip circuit, and got Impisi.

Much like Savannah, she's a plot device. Provide more intel, have the safe place that gets ransacked anyway, help resolve the interrogation. But I tried to give her some charm in how she bounces off the other characters. And the last bit of her role came about because her name is not only a Zulu word for hyena, it can also mean someone who's ugly or vicious-looking. So she ended up "the pretty one," because everything is in the eye of the beholder.

Needles and Crimson Flame

As I mentioned when talking about the setting, I ran with an assumption that Grubber and the Storm King's troops are the same species, and that shows through in Needles' design. His mane is made of quills, and his face has a short snout, but his body is the top-heavy build of the soldiers with arms like tree trunks and a longer tail. The lackey who ends up interrogated is much more Grubber sized and shows that this is a natural variance, and frankly, it's not any wilder than what the show tried to sell as members of the same species, see any circumstances where dragons gather en-mass.

As for Needles himself, I wanted to show a hedgebeast in a position of power within the Thunderstrikes. Just because the Storm King we know from the movie was a satyr doesn't mean that that was a forgone conclusion. Both species founded the kingdom, both are represented within the fringe movement, and it just happened that their ticket to the top was ultimately a satyr. While he spends the auction with something bestial lurking beneath the surface, which briefly bursts through with his roar of frustration, he's not a creature of blind rage. He'd be much less dangerous if he hadn't seen when it was time to calm down and bide his time.

Crimson, on the other hand...

Ultimately Crimson Flame steals the spotlight, villain-wise, and part of that is my childhood showing through; Kim Possible was a formative piece of media for me and Crimson is much like a four-legged Shego in how she fights, by wreathing her hooves in flame and striking physically. However, Shego's much smarter. All Crimson cares about is power, and she doesn't think ahead long enough to consider what she'll do with it. She's like a child who wants every toy she sees and then proceeds to break it.

(Incidentally, for more fun with names, a crimson flame is a type of flower.)

Why a kirin? Because I wanted something just close enough to a unicorn for her getting her hooves on the artefact to be worrying, and something that would be unusual both in her homeland of the Storm Kingdom and the backdrop of Farasi. She can't help but stand out no matter where she goes or who's looking at her. Plus, the fire makes for a harder time for Kisu to just put her down with a blade. Fire magic is a dangerous art, and creatures who have it inherent are all the more dangerous.

Sacanas

A Tartaurus of a way to handle a rejected marriage proposal, indeed.

If anyone's wondered, yes, her being a spurned admirer was at least partly me deliberately trying to avoid making her one of Celestia's past students while still having the conflict be personal. I prefer not to make students who went bad into a running gag, and have Sunset's situation be more unique and something she genuinely didn't see coming, because most of her personal students have been wildly successful.

You could say that I like exploring the concept of legacies, of an individual's works and influence outliving them. There was no canonical origin for the Alicorn Amulet, and given the way the Staff of Sacanas functions, it made sense to lay the credit (and blame) at the hooves of the same creator. I have many thoughts about Sacanas, and much of it ended up laid out in Night Light's words and thoughts. Average unicorns aren't much, but when they go bad, they go bad in some of the most horrifying of ways.

It's very unlikely that I'll ever show Sacanas outright. As Crimson put it, she's long dead and buried. Her works, and the scar on the world that she represents, are more interesting than diving into the life of a bitter bigot with too much power and no scruples in how she used it. Who she was is simple, but what she's done can have far-reaching ripples.

Other Notes:

• "The Menagerie" was my reasoning for the griffons in Griffonstone to be trading in bits on the show, and my excuse to not have to come up with a new form of currency for the auction. Think of it as something like the EU, with the bit the equivalent to the euro.
• The hippo and the giraffe in Casabronco were another bit of self-indulgence, as I like the thought of both existing in a sapient form in my local version of the setting. There are both sapient and nonsapient deer in MLP media, and for me, the same goes for hippos and giraffes. So in my take on Equestria, there being a "Queen of the Hippos" might not be as farfetched as you'd think.
• The behemoth auctioneer came from the same image source as the crocotta, though in that case I was taking even more license, because those elephants were noted as being based on grootslang. As there's already a very-much-not-elephant-like grootslang in the season 10 comics, I figured I'd cut down on potential confusion and call them something else, while giving dragons another species in their weight class in the process.
• Writing this has now placed thoughts of a ponified Warehouse 13 in my mind, as I watched some of the show when it first aired a decade ago and somehow the title and premise is something that truly stuck with me. I don't have plans to dive into such a concept any time soon, but it's an opportunity to show more Crown agents and will be filed away for a rainy day.

What's Next?

Currently, three things are on my mind:

One, there's another contest I'd like to enter, and you'll see which one if and when that story comes together and is finished. Though I will give a teaser that the idea involves the Apple family, and will be utilizing a very underused character tag in the process.

Two, I'd like to write a small, sweet slice of life for Halloween, that takes the opposite approach of this tale, diving into the post-series era instead of the pre-series one. Nightmare Night is a part of FIM's setting that greatly interests me, and I want to give it a bit of exploration.

And three, of course, The Long Eventide continues on its sporadic update schedule. I still need to reveal the mystery of the salad to the face, after all.