The Grand Galloping Gala
It would come to no surprise to anypony that the Grand Galloping Gala would end in disaster. It seems that this particular event is somehow cursed with bad luck, last year a bunch of mares ruined the Gala trying to achieve their dreams and after a nice show tune, they all went overboard and wrecked everything. This year was perhaps a little worse.
Felicity Peridot didn’t enjoy events like this, she couldn’t get in the mood to dance and sing when she was already nervous. You see, it was her first date with Klondike, after six months the big lug actually asked her out. But, as usual, J.J. decided to ruin her date by asking her to cover it.
Thank Celestia for Aberrant Flair, her photographer and residential genius Minotaur. He had promised to cover the event so that she could enjoy her date with Klon. That hadn’t stopped her from shaking in these rather expensive shoes.
Felicity tugged at her dress for the billionth time tonight, it was uncomfortable and rode up on her flank. She wasn’t used to wearing fancy things like this, the only outfit she would happily wear was kept compressed in her necklace and was a lot more form-fitting than this.
This dress was frilly and poofy to absurd lengths, it was a dark red, to match her coat, and had intricate star designs at the fringe. Her shoes may as well have been made of glass with how uncomfortable they felt. Her lime-green mane was curled and done to perfection by Ponyville’s expert manedresser. She wore star earrings and looked, as Daring Do put it, “like a doll!”
Felicity rolled her eyes, it was hard to believe that she could look anything resembling a doll. Her hooves were sweaty, her mane felt like it was coming apart, the dress as too tight at the waist, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Mostly because Klondike was right next to her, like right next to her.
He looked like a prince compared to her homely she looks.
His chocolate brown mane was combed elegantly; he wore a tuxedo which made him look suave and cool, and a bright blue bowtie which, on him, looked amazing. His eyes twinkled when he talked and..
Wait, what did he say?
“I-I’m sorry, what?” Felicity felt like an idiot.
“I said, ‘Do you want a drink’?” he repeated with a smile.
“Oh, yes, yes I would like something to drink.” She felt like she would need plenty of drinks to get through this night.
A waiter approached and Klon took a drink and handed it to her. She downed it fast, ack, spicy apple cider.
She looked around for Princess Celestia, she wanted to see her but at the same time feared the idea of her being here. Celestia was an amazing mare, don’t misunderstand, but Felicity also knew what she was like. You see, being one of Celestia’s students when she was a filly, she has been victim to Celestia’s teasing for years.
When Felicity got her first boyfriend, Celestia never let her live it down and incessantly messed with Felicity. She was like an overbearing and embarrassing older sister. She would probably retell stories about Felicity’s goof-ups as a filly to Klon if she showed up, ugh, that would be a nightmare!
But, thankfully, Celestia wasn’t around, which was a shame since this party was great! The ballroom was amazing, there were ceiling to floor glass stained windows that depicted great ponies throughout the ages like Starswirl The Bearded, Lightning Blitz The Brave, Arion The Swift and, embarrassingly enough, The Mysterious Mare Do Well along with Daring Do.
The last one was only recently added a month after the huge mess with the changeling princess Danus, and the turquoise serpent. Celestia honored the heroes with a few medals, a statue in the Canterlot garden, and this glass stained window commemorating their victory.
The attention from Celestia gave Mare Do Well a lot of good publicity, well, I suppose if the princess supports you, you’re bound to get benefits out of it. Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a vigilante and she has even been given the support of the police of Manehattan. And, since Mare Do Well was no longer seen as a bad guy, J.J. has given up on exposing her; therefore Felicity has a lot of freedom on what she wants to cover in The Daily Bridle.
And, after a while, she’s been given a promotion! She now has her own office, her own column and even a hefty raise. So far, life has been good for Felicity, crime is down in Manehattan, save a few weirdo ponies here and there, but everything has been going swimmingly!
Felicity literally couldn’t complain about anything at this point, she’s on a date with Klondike at the biggest party of the year (which the princess happily gave invitations to) all she really needed to worry about was looking like an idiot in front of him.
“This music is, uh, great!” Felicity remarked.
“They stopped playing,” Klon said, “But, yeah, they were good.”
Ponyfeathers!
Felicity looked at the musicians and frowned, it was as he said, they had just stopped playing. One of them looked back at her and Felicity shot a “why-did-you-stop-playing-now-the-moment-is-awkward!” look.
She cleared her throat, “Y-yeah, I knew that but I meant in a philosophical way you know? Some ponies theorize that music is the soul of reality and that ponies everywhere are able to produce a unique musical signature that only sensitive ponies are able to pick up but normal ponies everywhere are able to see as personality quirks, therefore I was speaking about the music produced by everypony here and-“
Klondike put a hoof to her mouth, “Fleece, calm down and take a deep breath.”
He released his hoof and Felicity took two deep breaths.
“Good,” he smiled, “Now, let’s just enjoy this party okay?”
Felicity nodded dumbly, she always acted dumb around him and it was infuriating. But he always knew how to calm her down and how to cheer her up, he knew how she ticked and she barely knew anything about him.
It was like he was an enigma, a puzzle that she couldn’t solve because half the pieces were missing. It was ironic that Felicity of all ponies couldn’t deduce her way into Klon’s heart, but then again, even if she doesn’t know much about him, he doesn’t know the entire truth about her.
Another waiter came by and Felicity gratefully took a hors d'oeuvre and munched it, she needed to fill her stomach or something, despite Klon’s efforts she wasn’t calming down.
“Ah, Ms. Peridot, so good to see you.” Without warning, Felicity spat out her hors d’oeuvre onto the face of that poor waiter and looked upon the mare who addressed her.
She cursed herself for not noticing her presence, but then again Princess Celestia could be very sneaky if she wanted to be, and, judging by the look on her face, she appeared quite happy with who Felicity is with.
Klon, and a bunch of other ponies nearby bowed quickly which made Celestia uncomfortable but she gave them her best smile.
“C-Celestia!” Felicity stuttered, earning a few hard looks from the other ponies at her familiarity toward the princess, “I-I thought you had retired for the night!”
Celestia looked at Felicity and smiled in a way a prankster would right before revealing her grand trick, “I had, but I came back after remembering that you, my dearest student, would be attending. I didn’t want to be rude, so, I came by to say ‘hello’. Hello Fleece.”
“You were one of her students?” Klon asked, astonished, Felicity hadn’t shared that piece of information for good reason, “I didn’t know that. Fleece, that’s amazing!”
Felicity blushed, she couldn’t tell why she was blushing either, was it because Klon complimented her or was it because Celestia being here was more embarrassing than her mom being here?
“O-oh, must have slipped my mind.” Felicity needed to calm down, she needed to get a handle on the situation.
“Now, now Fleece,” Celestia giggled, “You shouldn’t be so rude to your boyfriends-“ Felicity turned red hot, “-and to me. Why wouldn’t you tell this gentlecolt all about your dear mentor?”
Managing to get control over her emotions, and the fact that Klon hadn’t denied the whole boyfriend thing, Felicity shot her patented “I-will-get-you-after-this” look at Celesita. But Celestia just relished Felicity’s reactions.
“It’s fine Princess,” Klon said, “I’m sure it honestly slipped her mind.”
Celestia looked at Felicity and raised an eyebrow, “Perhaps, my little student here does have an addled memory. For instance, this one time, when she was a filly, she had overslept and rushed to arrive to class and managed to make it in time… wearing only her pajamas.”
Klondike laughed, but it was a restrained laugh, like he didn’t want to embarrass Felicity but it was far too late for that.
“There was also this one time during gymnastics-“ oh ponyfeathers, Felicity thought, not that story!
Quickly slipping away from the two, Felicity snuck over to the stage and looked at the cello player and did her best taxi whistle. Thankfully, the cello player saw her and Felicity raised an eyebrow and made a circle shape with her hooves, a secret signal that only they knew that would get things going.
The cellist raised an eyebrow and shrugged. Felicity nearly facehoofed. She then made a gesture with her hooves of playing a cello. Finally, she got it and motioned for the band to start playing. Oh thank goodness, she’ll have to hug Octavia later.
Felicity snuck back to Celestia and Klon just in time to hear her say, “-So, there she was, soaking wet, the rubber chicken wrapped around her neck and I still had half a pie left-“
“Oh my, look, the music is back up!” Felicity interrupted, stepping between them, “Klon promised me a dance, you understand don’t you princess Celestia?”
Celestia grinned but didn’t say anything and just trotted away, the crowd before her parted like she were some sort of princess and not a weirdo older sister who pried into her relationship. Now then, where was she-
Wait, what did she just do?
Realization hit her like a truck as she focused on Klon who smiled and held her hooves ready to dance. Her coat turned redder than physically possible as she realized what she- no, what Celestia did. She planned the entire thing to get Felicity to muster up the courage to dance with Klondike?
Looking around, she tried to spot the princess but she was long gone.
“You okay?” Klon asked.
She wanted to say “Yes, perfectly fine,” but it came out like “Uh duh.”
He laughed, “All right then, shall we dance?”
Felicity was drowning in this moment. Liquid happiness poured into her bloodstream and made her feel bubbly yet freezing at the same time, a mosh pit of butterflies decided to organize themselves into rioting against her stomach, she felt lightheaded and could barely hear anything. This was the happiest day of her life-
“AHHHHHH!!”
A blood-curdling scream tore through the quiet ambiance as an explosion shattered Felicity’s world. From the main entrance a strange creature stood with a wicked grin on his face.
“The party must be canceled on account due to inclement weather!”
It was a huge, eight foot tall machine that stood bipedal with strange things where its hooves should be. No, they were hands like on monkeys except they had opposable thumbs. Where the head should have been was a huge dome and within it was a pony grinning madly. The machine must have controlled temperature or something because it was suddenly freezing, at its feet the ground became solid ice.
Ponies everywhere began to scream and scattered, but Felicity just felt really ticked off.
“Fleece, run!” Klon cried.
She stopped herself from rolling her eyes and managed to say, “I’ll meet you outside, get out of here!”
Klon didn’t want to leave Felicity alone, that much was obvious from the look in his eyes, but the pony super-villain made it difficult to argue. Raising his hands, he aimed for Felicity and a heartbeat later a huge blue mist shot out and directed itself toward her.
Thinking quick, Felicity pushed Klon out of the way and, using the momentum of that push, rolled backward. The mist connected with the ground and froze it instantly.
Great, he can freeze things.
“Klon! Get out! I’ll be fine!” Felicity yelled.
He looked torn but ran out of here like she ordered. Felicity stood and faced the villain.
~--~
Thus concludes this chapter preview of En Passant a story I plan to produce later down the line. Optimistically, it shouldn’t take long to pump out the story, but a lot of things tend to get in the way. Anyways, enough on that, I hope you have enjoyed reading Daring Do and the Turquoise Serpent and even this tiny preview of En Passant, after all, this is all for you, the readers, not some glorified journey to conquer the literary world one website at a time; that would be silly.
I would like to thank my editor Ava Nova, for putting up with me for this long and for getting back to me in as expediently as I write. She’s quite the impressive gal to not have told me off after this long, and for fixing all of those semicolons as well, dizzying if you look back on it ^^
And I would also like to thank the readers for hopefully enjoying this story. Even if you didn’t enjoy it and read it, hated it and are currently sitting outside of my house deciding which window to smash, you gave me another traffic hit and that’s all that matters ^^