Seven Minutes in Heaven
Seven Minutes in Heaven
• • • •
Sunny fell.
The tearing of the barrier was sharp and sudden and just as quickly silenced as a hungry grey darkness poured across the fracture overhead, sucking dry the last flicker of moonlight. Sunny’s world was swallowed whole, every sight and sound silently vanishing into the void growth that surged along the walls of the Royal Dining Hall. She was left with nothing but the memory of the nightmare she had locked within the room but a week prior, and a million morbid imaginings of what it might have become.
Her eyes darted wildly, her ears swiveling in desperate and panicked motions as she searched for a single fleeting sight or sound of something, anything. But found nothing. So very much nothing. She should've hit the ground by now. She didn't even know what direction she was facing, or how long it had been, or where the black ended and she began. All she could sense was the thin, frigid air, coursing over and under her fur. She felt it spread, quite suddenly, and clenched shut her eyes the instant before a racking impact knocked the wind out of her body.
Sunny struggled to catch her breath and her bearings but there was nothing to catch onto, only an intangible weight against her hooves and her head and the whole of her body. She pushed back, pushed it away, but it was like moving underwater. There was something in the way, in every way. She tried to breathe, but nothing came in. No air, no light, no sound.
She was buried.
Sunny flailed and fought for the surface, feeling the impossibly fine powder around her body swirl and fall and give way without settling. She tried standing in it, but she sank into it like snow. Panic gripped her heart as she stretched into the air, searching for a single solid thing to hold on to. A hard mass brushed against her hoof. Then another. Quite suddenly, the two grasped her foreleg and pulled taut. The powder fell under her like a quicksand, heavy and unrelenting. She felt air against her muzzle, and gasped, coughing out an awful numb heaviness. The sugar. It tasted like that dreadful sugar.
Her frantic eyes darted around the pitch void, deaf and blind and desperate. Her breath caught as a flickering pink circle darted about the emptiness, quickly and erratically, before locking directly on her. Sunny screamed as the light threw itself at her with horrific speed. She felt something solid press against her shoulder as her eyes went wide, unblinking before the light.
"Whoa whoa! It’s me!"
Sunny stuttered in place as the voice bounced off her ear and vanished without echo. Raw and scratchy. Seraph's voice. It was just Seraph.
"I-I-I—"
The pink ring vanished as she moved. Sunny jolted as she felt a leathery wing hastily wrap around her back. Seraph pulled tight against her side. The sudden gesture startled the sense out of her, but on a very basic level, it was enormously comforting. It was absurd to think herself at all protected in a place like this, locked in a room with a being like the growth, but so she felt. Her heart settled a bit. She focused on the feeling, trying her best not to think her way away out of that small oasis of warmth. It was enough to free her from the grip of raw animal fear and grant a single thought.
"T-thank you."
"Lady, don't thank me yet. I was here when they locked this thing up. It's bad." She heard a shuddering fear on the young mare's voice. It was plainly unintended, but it was there and it was unguardedly real. Seraph was proud, but she wasn't stupid. "It’s really, really bucking bad."
Sunny felt a sudden tug as Seraph’s wing curled around her side and pulled her sharply to the right. She felt a fierce displacement of air, just feet away. Seraph muttered something harsh and heavy under her breath.
"You just count yourself lucky you can't see in the dark. Whatever the hoof this thing is, it is not a pretty s—" Seraph’s voice choked as she spun herself into Sunny’s back and hoisted her into the air at an awkward backward angle. Sunny yelped as a frigid, stabbing pain lashed across her lower foreleg. Real pain. She had forgotten how fierce it could be.
"—jaaayyyiimminy crickets!!" Seraph squeezed Sunny against her chest like a ragged teddy bear, pulling back for a few heavy beats before hovering in place, then lightly loosening her grip. Her hooves wrapped around Sunny's shoulders as she hung in the air, catching her breath. "Holy frickin’ horseapples that was close."
An almost invisibly dim pink light flickered across Sunny’s foreleg as Seraph looked her over. The fur was white and black against the pink glow. It was wet.
Seraph’s eye darted away, tracking something fast and huge and unseen. "It just nicked your leg. You're fine." Sunny felt herself pulled higher as a rush of air pulsed from just below. "You’ll be fine.” Her voice wavered. She hovered in silence for a moment. “...Sorry. It's so frickin’ fast.”
Sunny swallowed, staring down into the black. Already the wetness on her fur had gone cold and stiff against the frigid air. Seraph’s breathing was labored, her forelegs readjusting at closer and closer intervals. Her hold was weakening. "You have to drop me."
Seraph’s eye darted to hers for a moment, then back into the darkness. “You don’t get it. There isn’t anywhere it isn’t.”
“I know.” Sunny looked below. She closed her eyes, then opened them. It was impossible to tell the difference. If there was any magic left at all in the two tiny necklaces that hung from her neck, there would at least be a flicker. There was only black. “The only chance you have is to break through the fracture in the ceiling. The way we came in.”
“It’s covered.”
“With enough speed... I know you can make it through.”
“You’ll die.”
“We both will. Please. You have to.”
“I don’t have to do jack, lady.”
"You have to!"
"No deal."
“That’s an order.”
Seraph’s chest quaked with chittering laughter. Her grip wavered for a fraction of a second before tightening with a will. “Okay you almost got me to drop you there.” She chuckled, pulling sharply to the right and falling a few beats as another rush of air bore through the spot they were just idling. “Tricky tricky.”
Sunny felt a wash of dread. Seraph couldn’t keep this up for long. She was small, and she was young. She would slow, and the growth would consume them both. It was the only thing Sunny could see with crystal clarity. “I don’t want you to die for me.”
Seraph’s eyes widened as they tracked upwards, beading on something morbid and massive. “That’s what guards do.”
• • • •
Joe was jolted awake by the pealing kazoo of Pinkie Pie’s party cannon, his body rigid with alarm as a rainbow whirlwind of streamers and confetti tumbled over his head. He blinked, watching the twinkling paper breeze to the hardwood floor of a dimly-familiar small-town bakery. The Cakes' place, down in Ponyville. Of all the places in the world, Sugercube Corner.
He briefly tried to imagine some way in which this could possibly be real, but found his thoughts fast flooded by an unthinkably deep, unbelievably intense headache. All along the length of his horn it ran, coiling and burning down the bone, all the way into his skull, where it raged with the fury of a caged storm. Reason frazzled under the torrential distraction, shallowing his thoughts to the point of feral nothing. He held a hoof against his horn, trying to ease the pain. He felt a small weight press against his chest.
Joe looked to his hooves, to a bright blue present, wrapped tightly with an iridescent sun-colored ribbon. There was a little pink tag against the top, adorned with huge, happy, bubbly lettering.
To: Snugglebug <3
From: Donut Joe :)
“OoooOOoo!! Joe’s got another one!”
The voice was sweet and spritely and wholly unmistakable. Joe locked eyes with the bouncy bubblegum pony beaming at him from across the large, decorative Sugercube Corner tabletop he was evidently sitting at. Pinkie Pie. Regular, old, happy-go-lucky fun-size Pinkie Pie. No fangs, no tendrils, no shadow of a hint of menace, just that big, friendly grin of hers.
Pinkie bounced onto the tabletop and in front of Joe, grasping the box from his hooves and holding it up to her ear. She gave the gift a little shake. “Sounds mysterious! Wonder what he got you, Snugglebug!” She spun around and batted her tail against Joe’s muzzle. He felt something hard bounce off his snout and out of her poofy pink hair as she trotted away. On the table, just before him, was a colorful birthday card.
Joe stared at the face of the card.
Everypony likes to feel special...
He hesitantly pulled open the card with his mouth, taking a moment to spit out the tongueful of glitter that stuck to the inside of his lip.
And today you are the mane event!!
Below was an enormous crayon drawing of a small moori colt, grinning as his shimmering black mane waved in the wind. Joe’s eyes were drawn to the increasingly small writing below.
Happy 3000th Birthday, Snugglebug!!
Your Bestest Bud in the Whole Wide World,
Pinkie Pie
P.S. Open your present!! It’s probably something really really amazing!!
P.P.S. I’ll wait! Don’t wait on me!! Hop to it, mister!!! Go go go go go go okay I think he’s gone oh my gosh Joe I am SO SORRY!! You passed out and I couldn’t wake you up so I pulled you in here thinking I could wake up your body while maybe your mind helped me prepare a super-special surprise for this huge birthday bash I've been throwing right here in my brain!! It’s for a kind-of friend of mine who’s new in town and also secretly a crazy-old moon ghost who sort of just showed up in my head right before your party and was like, “Hello there, Pinkie Pie! This looks like a nice brain to move into, why don’t I just snuggle in right here!!” and I was like, “Ummm!! I’m not so sure about that!!” but he got really really snuggled in really really fast and so I really politely asked him how long he maybe planned on staying and he was all like, “what’s time?” and I told him the time was quarter-past five but it turns out he didn’t mean “what time is it now?” he actually meant, “what is time as a concept?” and that got me the teeeeensiest tiniest bit f r e a k e d o u t that maybe he didn't plan on ever leaving and maybe this is just how things were gonna be now forever and hooooo nelly deep breaths deep breaths whoooaaaaaaponyfeathers HERE IT COMES!! PINKIE’S LOSING IT EVERYPONY!!! UuuuaaaaahhhhhNO NOPE NOOOO NO NOPE gotta KEEP IT TOGETHER there Pinks KEFP IT TOGKTHWAJ
The words frazzled into a feral mess of untamed scribbling, continuing in erratic and random directions until a spiralling loopy mark sputtered out the side, rolling into a long series of “O”s. These continued on for about a line and a half, before:
OoooOooOOoookay I am GOOD now!! Those come and go, sorry! I call ‘em craze-nados!! Phewwie! That was a doozy! Sooo if you want to take a looksie across the table, Snugglebug’s right there (he’s playing with a toy Gummy I dreamed up for him!!) (take a peek!!)
Joe slowly peeked over the top of the card, to the small moori colt happily chewing on a squeaky toy alligator. He was young — maybe seven or eight — had moon-yellow eyes, feral ash-grey fur, pitch black hair and… and a big, cutesy bumblebee costume, complete with little buzzing bee wings that would flutter about whenever he got excited. Commodore Snugglebug.
Joe noted the bumblebee-antennae headband of his costume was missing, and was instead resting on Pinkie's noggin, bobbing about as she bounced around the room. Joe’s thoughts briefly wandered to the desperate gestures Princess Pinkie’s feelers had been sending him, out there in the castle. He couldn’t pretend to understand how the two of them controlled a single body, but he supposed, at the very least, it made a bizarre kind of sense that whoever wore the headband in here controlled the antennae out there.
Or maybe that made no sense whatsoever.
Wow his head hurt right now.
Joe continued.
So so, I um, full disclosure? I don’t entirely know what the super-secret birthday surprise is, 'cause the second I think about the super-secret birthday surprise it wouldn't be a super-secret anymore 'cause Snugglebug (the ghost) (in my head) (right there) kind of has the same brain as I do and he does a whole heapin’ ton of peepin' around, all watchin’ me think and then thinkin’ about me thinkin’ about how he’s thinkin’ about me thinkin’ and sometimes he thinks about super scary dragons while—
Joe turned the card on its back as the message hit the bottom of the page, watching with stunned silence as a tiny string of text wrote itself further and further down the paper, as if being penned by an invisible quill. He wrapped his foreleg around his head, closing his left eye and pressing it into his elbow in a futile attempt to dull the sawing headache. It was fading, thank Celestia. Very, very slowly.
The card was not helping.
—he drives around our body like a super big and super freaky Pinkie Party-drawn carriage that runs on secrets and stories and sometimes sugar (which is kind of normal actually) making it crazy hard for me to keep anything hidden!! In fact, I don’t even know if there is anything inside the super-secret birthday present! Maybe I never even came up with a present and this box is just a metaphor for a real box that’s out there in the castle and once Commodore Snugglebug opens the box he’ll actually be opening that big scary door to the big scary room that he flung that poor little pony intOH NO OHHH NO THAT’S THE PLAN ISN’T IT OH POOPSIES CHANGE TOPIC CHANGE TOPIC PRETTY HORSES BRIGHT BALLOONS COTTON CANDY RAIN CLOUDS
“What door?” Joe heard a young voice chirp from behind the large blue present.
Pinkie turned pale, chuckling nervously as she turned to face Snugglebug. “Eheh, the um! Theee uh… that… big, ginormous door? In the hallway? The one I moved us in front of?”
Joe jolted upright, dropping the card to the floor as it clicked in his head, as the memory slammed against the front of his brain in a flood of horror. The door. The room.
“Sunny.”
Pinkie shook her head and scrunched her snout in an unmistakable ‘Noooo no no no!’ gesture. Joe returned a desperate look.
“What’s a Sunny?” The Snugglebug pondered, more amused than interested. Pinkie looked to the ground, silent as her ears drooped. She thought for a moment, and gave the colt a solemn look.
Snugglebug’s eyes widened, as if Pinkie had just held up a photograph. “Oh, that.” With a wave his stubby little hoof, Snugglebug floated together the spent wrapping paper from around the table, pressing and twisting into an impossibly detailed mannequin of Sunny Skies. The hollow paper doll stared at Joe with lifeless eyes, eerily identical to Sunny’s. He even got that tiny little scar at the base of her horn right. “You guys have names for everything!”
“Her.” Joe propped his hooves on the table, standing tall as he looked down on the confused colt. “She’s a her, not a ‘that.’ ” He trust a hoof at the mannequin. “That is a ‘that.’ ”
Snugglebug’s ears fell. He turned to Pinkie with a baffled look. “B-but I just made you one! What’s wrong with it?”
Pinkie looked him in the eye with a small smile. “Nothing at all! It’s super duper special! You’re real good at making things, Snugglebug!” She tied a small ribbon around the paper horn of the gift-wrapped mare, padding it playfully on the head. Snugglebug’s face lit up, his ears perking upwards and his bumblebee wings buzzing about. “But Joe’s looking for a friend, not a thing! You can’t be friends with a thing, silly!”
“Isn’t everything a thing?”
Pinkie scratched her chin with the tip of her hoof. “Um! Kind of! Ponies are made of things, like your eeeears…” She grasped the moori’s perky ears between her hooves and danced them about. “...and your snoooouuutt...” She bopped him lightly on the muzzle, eliciting a gleeful giggle from the enraptured colt. “...and your hoofsies!!” Pinkie danced Snugglebug’s forelegs around as he pealed with laughter. “Ponies are kind of like birthday cakes! They’re a million jillion times better than all the ingredients that make them up!”
Snugglebug chittered, giving Pinkie a spirited 'oh you...' look. “No they’re nooot! They’re just all mixed together!” He glanced at the towering birthday cake that dominated the front foyer and waved his hoof at it. Like a sandcastle dissolving in the water, the cake collapsed into a neat stack of uncracked eggs, a pile of sugar and flour, a few sticks of unmelted butter, and a smattering of other odd ingredients. He started separating out the components of the frosting before losing interest, sending the hovering ball of icing to the floor with a wet splat.
Joe’s eyes widened. He glanced at Pinkie, who returned an unsure look, then looked to the floor with a shaky expression. Joe gently slid Snugglebug’s 'gift' to her side, sending her an encouraging look. She smiled, turning back to Snugglebug and presenting the box with a wide, toothy grin.
“Maybe you’re right, Snugglebug…” She placed her hoof on top of the present, turning it a bit, so the light from the window shimmered off the reflective paper. Snugglebug was practically drooling as he stared at his reflection in the gift. “Too bad birthday presents are only for birthday ponies, and not birthday things. I guess I’ll just have to forget all about it!”
Snugglebug’s expression fell into a gawk of horror as Pinkie pulled the gift away quite suddenly, a devious grin on her face.
Snugglebug’s eyes widened as he tracked the present into the air. “W-w-w-wait wait! Hold on! I-I-I was wrong! Ponies aren’t things! I’m not a thing! I’m a birthday colt!!” He gave Pinkie his best puppy-dog eyes as the wad of frosting on the ground re-formed into a floating ball and sucked back onto the towering birthday cake that had just baked itself to life behind him. A coil of icing hastily re-wrote ‘Harpie 300tn!!’ atop of cake as Snugglebug beamed an eager smile.
Pinkie giggled, putting a hoof on her hip. “Well… when you put it like that...” She pulled the present out from its hiding place in her mane, and plopped it in front of him. “Happy Birthday, Snuggles!”
Snugglebug took in the glorious gift for a delighted moment before batting the end of the sun-colored ribbon. He stared at his hoof for a moment before turning the present to the side, and gazing at a huge, complicated, messy knot the ribbon had been wrapped into. “Whoa.” He narrowed his eyes, looking intently at the knot. “That feels weird.”
Joe’s eyes drifted to the two ovular windows that towered behind Snugglebug’s seat, on either side of the front door. Eyes. They were shaped a bit like eyes. It was night, through these windows, and it was indoors. It was the castle, in the real world.
He saw his body laying on the ground, unconscious, clutching his hooves over his head with a tendril of hair wrapped around his midsection. Behind his body, there was the frayed and knotted sunlock he and Sunny had passed on the way to Luna’s bedchambers. He noticed a pair of tendrils off to the side, slowly approaching the winding magical seal with foal-like eagerness.
Joe turned his eyes to Commodore Snugglebug, watching as the colt picked and pulled at the knot before him. He could only hope this thing wanted that knot undone half as much as he did.
• • • •
Pinkie swallowed. This had to be the single most insane, half-hooved rescue plan in Equestrian history. What was inside the box? She had no idea. What was her reason for imagining the box? Not a clue. There was a plan there, somewhere, but she couldn’t think about the plan or Snugglebug would immediately see the plan as it was being planned and the whole thing would fall apart in her hooves. It certainly felt like a good plan, whatever it was. Did that mean it was actually a great plan? She… tried not to overthink it. Overthinking it was bad.
Pinkie stared as Snugglebug moved his foreleg about the air, pulling at the ribbon with unseen, immaterial hooves. She felt his attention drift away from her thoughts as he bit down on a wide loop and levitated the box in strange and elaborate motions, unspooling the tangle into a floppy floating mass. He tilted his head a bit as eight black tendrils formed from his mane and started working at the knot in eight dizzyingly complex, independent motions. His attention was wholly and completely consumed by the singular purpose of undoing that knot, and opening that present.
Pinkie felt a swell of confidence at the sight, darting to Joe’s side and shooing him to the front door. She glanced over her shoulder, watching as Snugglebug hovered the coiling wad of loose ribbon into the air and darted the box through each one in an erratic, chaotic orbit.
Oh please oh please oh please oh please!!
• • • •
Pinkie hoisted herself onto her hind legs as she grasped the handle of the front door to her mind, pulling it wide open. Joe stared at the bright pink nothing that stretched beyond the open doorframe. Pinkie fell back onto all fours, looking hesitantly into his eyes. “I-I can remember bits and pieces of what Luna saw, when she went into that room. I don't understand it at all, but... it scared her.” She frowned. "Please please please, don't get hurt in there, Joe."
Joe turned, and gave her a concerned look. She looked away. He stepped forward, wrapping his foreleg around the back of her head and pulling her against his chest in a tight hug. “Don't you worry about that." He rested his chin on her head. "I'll find the Princess, or talk some sense into Luna, or get a hold of Twilight, or something, and I'll get you out of this.” He stroked her back with his hoof, feeling her relax at the touch. "You aren't alone on this. You got that, gumdrop?" He felt Pinkie turn her head, pressing her wet cheek against his chest. "You just hold tight."
She was quiet as she gently pulled away from the hug. "Me and Snugglebug… with the sugar, we can feel everypony in Equestria.” She looked to the ground. “But I can't feel the Princess any more. I can feel Luna and Twilight and everypony else but you or her or... o-or Gilda." She looked up a Joe, her ears flat against her head. Her voice choked into a whisper. "I really really hope they're okay."
Joe smiled, wiping away a budding tear from her wobbling eyes. "Gilda and the Princess can take care of themselves. They're tough, and they're smart." He held his hoof against Pinkie’s cheek as a loud clack echoed through her mind. The lock was undone. Time to move. He turned toward the doorway. "When this is over, we're gonna have a good laugh about this at the Diner. Just you and me, and a fresh batch of those chili-powdered donuts of yours."
She laughed, wiping her eyes with the back of her hoof. "You promise?"
"Hope to fly."
• • • •
The sky fell.
Seraph could only barely make out the writhing sea of claws and tendrils and fluttering feelers of dust that grasped from the ground below, but there was enough to sense their movement. She knew they were there. It was something. But when the ceiling came down, there was nothing to see. Just the thinning air rushing against her back and the wrenching impact. Sunny was jolted from her hooves and swallowed into the emptiness with a scream, a scream that was silenced so suddenly and so completely she could still hear it in her head, as there was nothing left to replace it.
Impossibly fine powder surged over her body, pressing down on her back like a stack of mattresses and pinning her wings to her side. She lowered her head to the floor, taking a deep breath from the small pocket of air as the dust poured around her hooves and reached her underbelly. With a twist, she turned herself upside down and let gravity pull her wings free. Free enough for a heavy push. She swam, just like dad taught her that summer they’d gone camping. Push forward, left hoof first, spread the wings, thrust. Forward, hoof out, spread the wings, thrust. The darkness defied direction, but she remembered where Sunny had been. It was burned into her memory. She closed her eyes and pressed ahead, through the empty vacuum, blind as bat, until she felt it. Something solid and soft, thrashing wildly in the sea of powder.
Seraph wrapped her hooves around Sunny’s chest and pulled. The dust pooled under them, swirling around Sunny’s hind legs and towing her deeper. It swallowed with unwavering force, but Seraph wouldn’t let go. She put her head down, taking another breath from the pocket of air between her underbelly and Sunny’s head, looking into the mare’s terrified, pleading eyes, and filled deep her lungs. She braced her wings against the powder, and lifted, with every little thing she had. She felt something cold against the top of her head.
Air.
Her wings and her hooves and her lungs burned from strain, fighting against an unremitting force. She pulled Sunny to her chest, to that tiny pocket of air, watching with horror as it rapidly filled with black.
Then, it all went white.
• • • •
Joe’s horn burned a molten red as he dragged the towering slab of solid marble from the Dining Hall doorframe, inching it from the wall and toward its groove in the floor, one centimeter at a time. The sunlock had melted to the tile at Snugglebug’s release, pulled free from its knot and left to fizzle into nothing. In its place stood a thick white wall of flooring, evidently carved from the ground and set deep against the doorframe. Joe hadn’t indulged in a fleeting moment’s despair before grasping at its enormity with his sputtering magic and pulling with what little he could muster. His only conscious thought through the blinding pain was a desperate mantra, echoing without end: Do not pass out, do not pass out, do not pass out.
The slab teetered as it slid to the outcropping of the floor from whence it had been cut. He stepped back, breaking his magic tether and bracing himself as the onslaught of pain flooded his senses. The feeling was beyond measure, which helped, in a way. It didn’t even seem real, like it was so far off the scale that he’d broken it. He took in a sharp breath of air as the slab of marble toppled forward, crashing into its groove with a rattling voomph. Joe gazed into the yawning doorframe as his senses came back to him. He stepped toward the harrowing pitch black.
“Coooool…” Princess Pinkie cooed, stepping forward and tilting her head as she peered at the growth along the floor. Joe broke into a sprint, galloping into the cold void and calling for those he loved. He frantically looked about the black but there was nothing to see. He called again and again, but nothing could be heard. The frigid air bit at his fur, pulling the heat from his body with a ferocious hunger.
Then, light.
There was a single instant of sight before the light overwhelmed his eyes and forced them shut. He could see it against the back of his eyelids. The last thing he saw before the brilliance had blinded him. Pinkie’s hoof, touching the ground. The black turned to sugary white before her touch, in less than a blink. Joe cracked open his eye, blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the sudden change. He swivelled his head, but it all looked the same. Blinding white, in all directions, on every wall and floor and surface in the room.
Then he saw the red.
Joe’s heart froze as his eyes focused on the small trail of red liquid leading up a hill of white. He ran, feeling his hooves sink into the powder like a deep snow. Blood, it was her blood.
No no no no.
There was something small and a little less white than the rest, just at the end of the trail. Joe buried his hooves into the dust without a second thought, feeling something squirm at his touch. He sank deeper, digging furiously with his legs as he cleared himself shoulder-deep, and began shoving it away. It was a mare, coated with white powder, still breathing, wrapped tightly over another. Joe gave another forceful push, clearing the last of the powder and freeing them from the white.
“Sissy!” Joe shook her shoulder, falling on his rear as he spoke into her ear. “Sissy, it’s me! It’s me, oh goddess, it’s me.”
She jolted, pulling up her head and sending a feral look in his direction. She blinked, her eyes wide and her breathing heavy. She stared at him, unbelieving, for a weighted moment, before shakily rising to all fours and staring down, to the mare that was curled up underbelly. Fine sugar poured off of her shoulders and her backside as she tracked along Sunny’s body, from tip to tail. She was still, with a small, striking pool of red around her hoof.
Joe was on her in an instant, burying his foreleg to the shoulder and wrapping it around Sunny’s stomach. He pulled, fighting the tow of the swirling dust until her hind legs were out and her limp body came loose. With a lunge, she was free, falling to her knees and coughing ragged mouthfuls of the powder to the floor. She coughed until she couldn’t, pulling in deep, desperate breaths. Her chest heaved as she frantically scanned the room. Her eyes locked onto Joe’s. Her ears fell, and without a moment’s hesitation, she threw her arms around his neck in desperate relief. Joe held her tight, hearing her soft sobs.
“I’m here. I gotcha. I gotcha.” He stroked her back, feeling her heart pounding against his, her tears against his neck. “I gotcha.”
Joe’s eyes drifted to Seraph. Her head was craned upwards, gazing with a tension at the frozen tendrils that reached into the night sky above. Lifeless and yielding. Quite suddenly, they shrank to the floor as the white powder of the room swirled together and pulled itself to the hooves of Princess Pinkie.
Seraph’s eyes darted to her brother’s. They shared a single look and turned for the door. Joe shifted Sunny onto his back as they broke into a run. The ground swelled beneath their hooves, rushing toward the doorframe like water down a river. Pinkie giggled as the sweet powder surrounded her, coiling at her hooves like a saccharine whirlpool. She grabbed hold of the sugar with her mind, kneading it in the air like a wad of dough.
“I remember this! It's the bestest present of all!” She bobbed her head as she pranced through the doorway, a torrent of sugar flowing underhoof. "More me!"
Joe and Seraph fought through the river of white, plunging chest-deep into the surging powder as they struggled to pass the doorframe. Seraph was quick to take wing as the sugar rose to her underbelly, grasping Joe’s hooves with her own and pulling the stallion as he broke through the side of the whirlpool and into the hallway. The powder flooded along the ground, pulling the floor out from under Joe’s hooves and dropping he and Sunny sharply to the ground. Pinkie floated overhead, gazing with delight at the endless stream of sugar that snaked its way out of the open doorway and down the hallway to pool at her hooves.
“I zapped it right in a while back with the help of my ooooold moon buddy Mr. Harbie! He was my very very favorite before I met you ponies!” She whirled her hoof in the air, forming a mindful of sugar into an impeccably-detailed statue of an excessively large dragon. Joe heard a sharp gasp from Sunny’s mouth as the figure took shape.
Joe felt a chill run down his spine at the sight of the statue's horridly familiar face. Dragons were pretty hard to tell apart, especially without their coloring. Joe could think of maybe two, total, he actually knew the names of: one was a hatchling, living in Ponyville, and the other was dead, slain in the rout that left Seraph an orphan. But this one? There was no mistaking this one. Every pony in Equestria knew that face.
Discord.
Wings, legs, claws, a body. A normal body. A massive, ancient, unholy dragon, wearing the face of the most ridiculous and surreal monster in Equestrian history. Joe stared at it for a moment, drinking its strange ferocity, before turning to face Princess Pinkie. She hovered beside the statue, making a series of imperceptably minute tweaks to the sculpture with her eight busy tendrils, cheerfully humming to herself. Joe cleared his throat.
“W-well then! Happy… happy birthday there, slugger! Um—!” Joe’s voice shook as Pinkie’s razor irises locked on him for a single, heart-stopping moment. She paused her tendrilwork, unblinking as she waited on his words. “I’m uh! It’s— phew, it sure is late, huh?! Me and Sunny and sis should probably just, you know, be hittin' the old dusty trai—” His voice trailed off as a tendril slowly stretched toward his head. Joe’s breathing halted dead as it paused mere inches from his snout, curving over his horn and, ever-so-gently, ever-so-slightly, patting him on the head.
“Ooooookie dokie! Thanks Joe!”
Joe rose a trembling hoof to his horn and gave a friendly salute, before stoically turning toward his sister.
"Home."
She put a hoof behind her head, looking away. "In a bit. I'm gonna check on Luna, see if she's alright. We just left her there."
Joe raised a hoof in protest, but she waved him off. "Yeah yeah, don't worry, I... I just gotta know." She glanced over to Luna’s bedchambers as she unfurled her sugar-dusted wings. "I should've been there, for her. I wasn't."
She gagged as Joe pulled her into an unbearably tight bear hug. He spoke over her shoulder as he squeezed her close. "Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you, so bucking much."
Seraph flustered, "J-just doin' my job..."
Joe pulled away, looking her in the eye. "You saved her life, sis. You saved Sunny’s life.”
"Heh, yeahh..." She cricked her neck with a wide, self-satisfied grin. “Pretty amazing, no two ways about that.” She put her hooves on her hips, striking a heroic pose that wafted a clingy cloud of sugar into the air. “All in day’s work.”
“Seriously. Anything you want, I’ll make it. Anything."
Seraph flashed a hungry smile as she lifted off the ground. "Guess I wouldn’t mind a batch of Thorin Cakes. Couple of those eel-stuffed peppers, too, with that freaking amazing cheesy stuff..."
"You got it." He nodded in the direction of Princess Pinkie, who was now deep into the act of sculpting an ever-growing lollipop obelisk from her endless reservoir of sugar. It stretched, inch by inch, into the greying skies above. A storm. A storm with no weather team to divert it. Joe followed his sister at a brisk pace as she started for Luna's bedchambers. "Breakfast."
Seraph nodded, sending her brother a half-wave as he split off toward the throne room. "Breakfast it is."
Joe picked up speed as he rounded the corner and galloped past the empty throne of the diarchy. He bore down the small set of stairs at the foot of the entryway, his fur growing heavy against the damp drizzle that drifted in sheets from the clouds above. The sky had taken a strange and unnatural hue as grey storm clouds drifted over the white-pink aurora, backed by the intense light of the moon. It fell somewhere between apocalyptic and beautiful, a striking sight that was quite unlike anything he had ever seen.
Joe felt Sunny pull tight against his back as he pressed through the writhing sea of ponies that filled the open courtyard ahead, past a hundred different groups in a hundred little worlds of their own. Past pockets of delighted chatter and heated debate, bursts of rollicking laughter and excited bluster. Somepony spilled a chilled drink against Joe’s leg, but he barely noticed it against the rain. Another fell hard against his side, pushed playfully back by an chuckling stallion, but Joe just righted himself and pushed forward. His mind was elsewhere. He glanced through the crowd and about the courtyard for a single solitary spot.
His head throbbed as the burning ache from earlier eased at the pleasant wind of light rain against his horn. The crowd thinned. He passed along the wide, busy intersection at the entrance of the Residential District, weaving his way over the bridge and drawing to a hurried stop at the foot of an ornate, ancient water fountain at the heart of the commons. They were surrounded still by a rainbow sea of ponies, chattering and laughing as they passed all around, on their way to a hundred different gatherings. Here, at the very least, there was room to move. Here there was room to breathe.
• • • •
Joe lowered himself to the ground, shifting his weight gently to the side as Sunny stepped from his back to lean against the siding of the fountain. Her hooves rattled, her legs weak from exhaustion and fear. She couldn’t seem to stop the trembling that coursed through her limbs, to find the strength to settle. She hated that she was helpless to control even that; her own body. She felt a well of aggravation batter against her chest. This stupid, tiny, useless little body.
Her senses were jolted awake as Joe’s shoulder touched softly into hers, pressing a calming weight to her side. The wash of startled alarm melted fast into its warmth, into the inviting comfort of his hold and his hooves. She pressed herself against his fur, feeling his forearm hold lightly against her side as they slowly fell to their knees, laying against the cool, rain-wet cobblestone. She watched as he lifted her hoof to the tip of his muzzle, inspecting the cut. Sunny pressed shut her eyes, fighting off the old instinct to pull away, the invading sense that this was too close, that this wasn’t for somepony like her. That she didn’t deserve it.
She felt the warmth of her tears as they passed over her cheeks and pooled under her chin. The sense of helplessness was beyond frustration. She was utterly at the mercy of the cold and the strain and the rattling fade of adrenaline, unable to stop the trembling of her hooves or the chill of her fur. She wanted nothing more than to be whole again, to feel her body radiate with the limitless strength of the sun. To know beyond a shadow of a doubt that there wasn’t a single living thing in the world that could rend her beloved ponies from the safety of her care.
How could she have been so foolish? So selfish as to abandon them, even for a night? Even for one little drink and one little laugh with the cute, friendly baker of her favorite coffee shop. She was all they had. She was all they had and she hadn't been there when they needed her. She had almost been killed tonight. She had almost been gone, forever.
There was a soft, firm pressure on her wrist, snapping her from her thoughts.
Joe’s hooves worked with a firm diligence as he wrapped tight her gash with the length of bandage previously tied around his leg. She hadn’t even noticed his movements, so swift and cautious they had been. Only daring to touch her fur when he had no other choice. He grasped the end of the bandage with his teeth, and wove a simple knot between his hoof and his snout. His eyes rose to meet hers and he pulled the knot tight.
She swallowed, feeling her heart sink at the expectant look. She felt a raw and inchoate shame force her gaze to the ground, to the white lines of sugar that beaded off her fur and swirled in the percolating rainwater of the street. In his eyes there was nothing but a pure and unguarded hope. A strength and a steadiness she wished to a million stars she could find in herself, in that moment. But it just wasn't there.
“I couldn’t do a thing for them, Joe.” Sunny’s ears sank with her heart, pressing against her head as she looked to the crowd. To the rows of pink-ringed eyes that danced and darted about in oblivious delight, blissfully ignorant that they were slaves. That they were the playthings of a formless and unfeeling monster. “They needed me to be strong, to be there for them when there was nopony else.” Her tears came freely, mixing with the rain and the sugar as they ran down her ragged fur and fell from her trembling chin. She felt as if there was nothing more to her but the hollow sound of a false name. As if the princess of the sun was well and truly gone, a silly story none could remember. “They needed me so completely and so deeply and I couldn’t do a single thing.”
Joe held her hoof between his, gazing at the wrapping with a distance. His amber coat was streaked with lines of white as the steady rainfall pulled away the tainted sugar like a fading nightmare. Water fell from the corners of his unwavering smile. “What you did was so unbelievably insane and so unbelievably courageous that you have to be one or the other. There just isn’t enough room in a mare for so much of both.” He met her uneasy gaze, gently pushing her wet mane clear of her eyes. “And you aren’t crazy, Sunny. Not even a little bit.”
She looked away, pulling her hoof quietly to her side as her tears welled and fell without end. She felt his hoof touch her cheek, and startled in retreat. Her mane fell back over her left eye as she stared at the ground, her heart racing. She wanted to apologize, for her ridiculous fear, for the harrowing night, for the lie of her name she couldn’t bear letting go. Without the lie of Sunny Skies, she would be nothing. She would be very much alone.
“Please don’t cry.”
She looked into his eyes, then to his hoof, watching as he gently pulled it away. She moved without a thought, both hooves reaching out to grasp his foreleg and guide it back to her cheek. She held his hoof against her wet fur, closing her eyes as she pressed her cheek into the wonderful warmth of his touch.
Joe leaned close, blocking the rain with his muzzle as he turned her face and pressed his lips against hers. The commotion of the crowd faded. Her world shrank, leaving only the touch and the heat and the desperate relief. The trembling was gone, steadied by a safety and a comfort she hadn’t felt in ages. All it had taken was one little touch.
A dim light glimmered from the orange gemstone that hung from her neck, safe and warm between their embrace.
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Huh, the moon has the strangest Genius Loci of all time. Also, Discord is incoming, I wonder if he is going to be siding with the Demonic sugar or against it.
It occurs to me just how brilliant this is, a not wholly original... yet still interesting take on the eldritch horror. Loathe as I am to use TV tropes definitions since they don't always fit particular situations. Having such a powerful entity be threatening, yet so innocent. Pinkie is just the perfect character to interact with it.
YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!
OMG. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YES!!! JUST ALL OF MY YES!!! GHASFYASHRTEOP!!!!!!
3435094
God, I loooove writing Pinkie, as a character. Riding that line between elaborately positive and just complete by-the-seat-of-her-pants improvisation. She's got this really ambitious way of solving her problems and I really really wanted to give her a way to try to make it work in a really important way.
3435166
Eeeeee!
3435065
He's... got some history, concerning Oni. All of the older dragons do, considering. I have no idea if I'll be any good at writing him, but we'll see.
YAY U UPDATED!
Also, this is one of the strangest things I have read and probably the strangest to have a real plot. Just sayin'
3435254 The name Oni... is odd, from Japanese mythology, right?
The thing is, I ADORE the aspect of having this thing that is some sort of spirit, or being, barely able to be comprehended... Yet so simple and innocent. I've read stories where spirits or powerful deities wielded unbelievable powers, yet suffered from disorders such as mental retardation or a severe form of autism. While not stated explicitly, it was clear that was the author's intent. Despite everything they have, they're still not perfect and thus sympathetic. It seems like such a cheap ploy by the author but I adore it. And like I said, of all the mane 6 to understand something like that, Pinkie would be best one able to connect on such an innocent and basic level. I don't know if that is how you intended to portray Oni or not, but it's been interesting so far.
This probably the best I've seen Pinkie in any fanfiction on here.
Oh, Discord shouldn't be hard if you've written Pinkie this well. Though it might depend on how you want to portray him. Sinister or fun loving? Or in between?
Freakin' Luminary making stories awesome for me to read. There's no way he's not pre-reading my stories now. It's beyond settled. You hear that Luminary you magnificent bastard!?!?
3435254 EEEEEEE!!
I love this story.
I think the best part of it is that, for pretty much the entire story so far, I've had absolutely no idea what was going to happen, yet I wasn 't completely lost, either. A perfect balance of understanding and mystery that has kept me guessing no matter how many times I was proven wrong.
In response to the KISS at the end:
FINALLY! You go, Joe!
As much as I want to see more, please don't try to rush it. The awesomeness of this story is worth the wait.
Write on,
Legion
Wait til he finds out Sunny is the Princess.
I've really enjoyed this story and I expected to enjoy this chapter as well...I was not disappointed.
Honestly I find myself preferring the relationship/character development and growth between characters to the adventure arch of this story. However, that's not to say I'm not enjoying the adventure...it's just you write the relationship and character stuff so well!
...also...I'm sure I've said this before, but I approve this shipping.
And I approve it because these characters feel like real
peopleponies that live in their own world and interact with each other. They feel like their living their own lives instead of an author deciding that they want their OC to date their favorite pony and don't do any of the development...unless you're Blackgriffin. But he's the exception.3435322
Yup. I believe it's a sort of Japanese goblin monster. I picked it because I liked the sound of the name, firstly, and secondly, it was very simple, and I feel like that's a big part of Oni's nature: that he's much closer to being a force of nature than being a person.
(The third reason is that it looks a lot like "One," and Oni, being magic, is "the one within all.")
I feel like the whims and the wants of an all-powerful being are what makes them fallible. Oni might be essentially a god, but he's limited by his incredibly short attention span, and his singular desire for entertainment (and, by extension, narratives). He wants to be entertained, and to keep up that forward momentum. That's his core nature, as a magical force that follows spells and grants desires. His personhood, young as it is, is just a result of him being frustrated enough by the ancient squabbling that he grew into sentience as a kind of reflex, to "clear things up" and return to that simplistic momentum again.
So, I dunno. I'm trying not to paint his child-like simplicity as a failing, exactly. It's more that he has only a passing interest in the lives of the living, insofar as he's found it deeply exciting so far. In a lot of ways, this makes him a complete monster, but in others, it just makes him inexperienced and naive.
Also: YUP. Luminary is a reeeeeaally great editor. Really lucked out with him. I just started on his Crucible the other day, while on the train, and hoooly hell it is good.
The
openingentire chapter has a lot of overly long sentences. I understand you want to impart urgency, but cramming information together like that makes things harder to follow. There are so many commas and conjunctions that it became incredibly hard to parse a lot of the sentences. If a reader has to reread a sentence, then it has not conveyed danger.Not wrong, but you might want to change the "but"s to "except" or some other explicit substitute. I had to reread both these sentences (among several others) to get the meaning.
On a belated, but related note, I put off reading this story for a long time because the description is incredibly unhelpful--the description and the group list are the two main things that I look at when trying to get a feel for a story, and neither of those is terribly descriptive here. Even after twelve chapters connecting your description and the content is tenuous at best.
This chapter didn't have much plot momentum, but I think my favorite part was Celestia hitting the despair event horizon right near the end. It's such a natural progression of her character to overreact to helplessness, and it's a nice foil to Twilight. (There might be a plot bunny there somewhere; Immortality Inferiority, maybe set right after Chrysalis beats up Celestia? shrug.)
3435867 Yes, exactly! That's what's missing from almost all shipping stories around here! The characters usually feel as though they've been forced to fall in love by an outside influence. They never feel 'whole', instead made of a patchwork of pieces that are pushed in various directions until 'teh lurve' happens.
It's as if some giant monster made of moon sugar has taken over their minds and made them fall in love despite the complete lack of anything that would lead to a real romance!
But in this story, said moon sugar monster became busy with Pinkie before it could brainwash all the characters and so the few uncontrolled characters are free to develop real feelings for each other.
I'm loving to death that this is a love story with a strong female lead in a true sense and not a cliche that many fall into. The fact thatjoe is not a shining knight but the prop-up for her courage makes the love story soooo muchbetter.
More more more!
3436600
Eh, I'm kind of with you on the description. I've been meaning to tweak it for a while, but nothing comes to mind that doesn't just read like a flowery list of things that will happen in this story. I'll give it another shot in the next few days.
For the sentence structure, I really really wanted to write it with some measure of intensity, and immediacy. It's tricky.
I'll poke around for sentences that need re-reading, as that always bugs me in other stories. It's something I've been trying to keep an eye on.
The Pinkie head games was Perfect.
'crase-natos' 
looking forward to more catbird and shippy feels in the next chapter
I've got to admit. I thought the kiss would have trouble living up to the build-up in the story. It sometimes can. But really, I found it satisfying as all hell. It was simple and wonderfully effective.
Like others, I really, really can't wait for Joe to find out about Sunny.
Though, yeah, at this point it'd probably be more likely to result in Celestia's worst fears. Still remembering him freaking out when she showed up at that party. It's getting more and more viable all the time though. Joe is building up a nice reservoir of admiration for Sunny-as-a-mare that might help him bridge things to Sunny-as-ruling-immortal-demigod.
3435322
Oh, I can't take credit for this one at all!
With some authors, you have to give creative and logical nudges here and there, and you end up having a certain influence on the story. With Wade I'm just on error control, and occasionally reining in Pinkie dialogue. That beautiful brain provides all the delicious insanity on its own. Some authors make pre-reading easy. You pretty much spend more time enjoying the story than actually doing anything constructive. And it's like that here.
This chapter is a great example of that. I probably left more comments in it praising parts I liked than fixing things.
(Though there isn't much excuse for forgetting to comment on the issue 3436600 pointed out with the trouble with 'Never daring to touch her fur but when unavoidable.' I'd meant to suggest reversing it to 'Only daring to touch her fur when he had no other choice.' or somesuch. But it seems I never did.)
As for pre-reading, you might not want to poke me in the next week. Between being ravaged by a bit of illness, and being in the swing of writing a (somewhat Pinkie-centric, steampunky AU) collab with Jaketheginger, I'm giving less than my usual attention to things here.
3436968
Or catbird shippy feels.
All the lesbian mares are straight for Donut Joe. Well known fact.
Love the Pinkie head time, so crazy and yet it made so much sense. Also, Seraph refusing to abandon Sunny was really powerful, I had to go back and reread that scene several times.
Hell yes. I am shipping Joe and Sunny so hard right now, here's hoping they aren't pulled apart from each other by the end of the story.
For the whole of the last session I was crying kiss her already, I thought you were going to fake us out near the end but you got there eventually.
yay finally great kiss
SS/PC: "When you find out the secret I've been keeping ... it's okay if you're upset. Just please donut hate me."
3442024
oh my god
I liked it all!!! More!!!
Goodness so much effort and talent in this story. Really. Bravo to all involved, This story truly shines due to all your efforts. You deserve every single bit of praise.
Although I must say that sometimes I feel like it's hard to follow. Like - ugh - how can I explain this…
Okay, it's like I'm reading the story. I'm reading what's happening, as its happening. But yet there are points where I have to wonder how certain things… came about. Like, for example, I thought we were in Luna's bedroom at one point yeah? Demon Pinkie comes crashing through the envelope and after a blind attack by Sunny. Pinkie does… something or other to her.
All of a sudden Sunny is up in the air falling to her death. But… wait… weren't we just in Luna's Bedroom? How'd we get outside?
Then Seraph goes after Sunny, but hang on I thought she was still under Oni's control? Why is she acting lucid all of a sudden? Wouldn't Demon Pinkie see this panicked rescue attempt and do something about it? What about Luna? What's she doing? Did Joe's wet willy shock her out of it? Is it really that simple?
Now Sunny and Seraph are somehow in the dining room. Eh? I thought the dining room was sealed. How could Sunny and Seraph find themselves in there now? Wouldn't a fracture in the roof kind of… render the sun lock useless? Also, what in the world was going on in there? Was it supposed to be pitch black? I think its me just not reading carefully but I had a hard time picturing just what was going on when Sunny and Seraph were in the Dining Room.
Also back in the chapter of The Royal Snogging when Luna has commenced THE ROYAL SEDUCTION Is it just me or was Donut Joe kind of… going with it (I mean, I certainly caught the part where he was trying to undo her breastplate). I think I missed something. Also, what in the world was Sunny doing through all that? Did she kind of conk out on us while Luna was getting all up on her Stallion?
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the story and love what all of you are doing. I feel like this is just more me NOT reading carefully enough more than anything. If so, then don't mind me, just inform me that I HAVEN'T been reading carefully enough and I'll reread. (Oh lord I have to reread a great story, oh woe is me…)
Thank You for everything to the pre-readers and the authors! Love this story!
3446221
The answers are there, but a lot of those are things I could have explained better:
-- After Pinkie pulls Sunny off, and Sunny blasts Pinkie with the necklace, Pinkie grabs her by the tail and flings her straight into the sky, where she falls back down, and lands in the Dining Hall.
-- Most of the roof of the castle is gone, as Pinkie pulled it off and whittled it to dust as Joe and Sunny made their way to the castle. I mentioned that one event once, and then mentioned the open skies a few more times, but yeah, this probably needs to be more clear. I went back and added a few more references to it, about a month back, but I might add more.
-- When Seraph flies off to rescue Sunny, she's still under Oni's influence, but she isn't, like, controlled by him. In that chapter Public Enemy Number Fun, he tried controlling the ponies as mannequins or zombies, but it was dull and lifeless, so Pinkie suggested he give them more freedom. When they all panicked, she did nothing but change their memories so that Celestia never existed, Oni seemed normal, and it was normal to party forever. So, for Seraph here, her princess/boss just tossed an innocent mare into the sky, possibly to her death. She saved her, because she didn't want to see Sunny die, and even if she doesn't remember things the way she used to, she's still her. I'll get more into this when they have breakfast.
-- Oni could've stopped Seraph, but he has no reason to, and it was entertaining, which is all he really cares about. This was less Oni trying to kill Sunny, and more him tossing her away like a kid would a toy that gave him a cut.
-- Luna was arguing with Oni about terrorizing her subjects, then Oni got fed up and made her go slack-jawed. That and what Oni was doing to Joe caused Sunny to blindly attack Oni. Luna’s probably still in her room, in a blank daze.
-- The wet willy was something Joe did to Seraph, to snap her out of her love-drunk haze after being pressed up against Oni for a while, which is apparently really pleasant for moori.
-- When Sunny was falling, Seraph caught her, and tried to break their fall by flying into the sky in a series of heavy beats of the wing. She slowed them down, but they still hit the roof of the Dining Hall, which, like the rest of the castle, is missing its roof, so they basically just fell on top of the containment spell. Seraph and Sunny then land on the magic barrier along the top of the room, it stretches, and then tears, and they fall through the top, into the containment spell.
-- At this point in the story, the sunlock is close to failing, so that's why it fractured, because it was weak. The growth probably would have seeped out of this crack in the cieling until it was free, given time.
-- I kind of kept what the growth looked like and what it was doing to your imagination, but it was supposed to be pitch black. Those rushes of air Seraph kept moving around were movements by the growth, presumably trying to consume Seraph as she floated there with Sunny.
-- During the snogging, from Joe’s perspective, they just got caught breaking into the princess' bedroom. He goes with it because, if he doesn't, they might very well have to answer what they ARE doing here (evidently stealing something from a book) and that might end poorly. Remember, he has a childhood fear of this woman. Also, Joe kind of is into Luna, in a physical level, but he wasn't in the least genuinely trying to put the moves on her during that sequence.
-- This doesn't have a great answer, but Sunny was just flatly shocked and mortified by what was going on, and sat speechless.
So, most of it's there, but yeah, it's complicated. Some of it's for drama, other things are obstacles I wrote around to get to the sequences I wanted.
3446773
Ahh, okay. a lot of the things you say really make things clear. I guess it was just a case of me not reading too clearly then heh. Thank you! I totally missed the fact that the castle was missing all of its roof. Makes much more sense to suddenly be able to see Sunny in the sky.
3447226
Alright, went back and added a few more mentions of the missing roof, during that whole sequence where Sunny gets thrown into the sky. It's not something I mentioned very much before then, so it's good to remind the reader when that whole biz goes down.
3447999
Excellent :D Thank you!
i...damn
Steady as she goes, there's fair waters ahead
I lost this story, and I am very happy to have found it again. Your writing is very good and I love these characters, I have a firm sense of every pony that you write about. So my one question is this, how much longer until they find a path to victory?
3461193
This coming chapter.
Was hoping to get there at the end of this chapter, but it didn't fit, and the kiss seemed like a good place to end it, dramatically.
Kissing sequences are my deepest fears, too.
For a minute there, I tought Sunny wasn't going to accept the love of a mortal... Celestia be blessed, but knowing that Sunny is a goddess and that this fact is probably going to be a huge issue later makes me feel a little sad...
If anypony had to keep a secret from herself to save the world, I couldn't pick a better pony than Pinkie Pie.
Another of my sleepless nights spent reading colorful horse words.... And I don't think I could have picked a better story. This has been a crazy wonderful experience and a delightful take on Celestia as a character. A REAL character with worries, anxieties, and real happiness. I need this to end happily, cause if you somehow crush my heart with this tale of yours I will troll your page and everything you hold dear for the rest of my days. I mean it. After reading Background Pony I give no more shits to sad endings. They end up together, no lies, and a happily ever after or there will be WRATH.
I await the next installment with abated breath.
3611812
Only relevant result on a Google image search for MY LITTLE PONY JACKPOT is pretty much perfect:
derpicdn.net/img/2013/8/3/390180/large.jpeg
I really like this story, and I've been recommending it to my friends. Please give us more soon!
3863831
Thanks!
Next chapter is just going through my pre-readers now, so quite soon.
Oooooh Discord backstory.