Three hundred years after the fall of Princess Luna, Equestria teeters on the brink of disaster. Bitter political infighting and power-hungry nobles threaten to tear the country apart in a bloody civil war, while in the south old enemies prepare to reclaim their ancient homeland from the ponies.
As Princess Celestia desperately strives to hold together her splintered nation, she sends a young pony on a quest to the northern lands that border Equestria in order to plead for aid against the threat of Grypha. This unlikely messenger is Rye Strudel, the flightless, magicless, half-breed son of a guard and a baker. Rye must do the impossible and unite the thanes of the north... for if he cannot, there may be no home to come back to.
Chapters (67)
Im glad to see this story is on fim
keep up the good work!
Hmmmm. Well this is something new. New time period. New characters and basically a very unexplored take on Equestria, at least in my experience. And the quality is excellent and the characters are quite interesting. I'm definitely tracking this story. Should be quite interesting to see where it goes.
Quite a nice read mate. I must say love coming from the battlefield is rare, and even more so when those in love are a baker and the Captain of an elite fighting unit. Now I have the mental image of Apricot using a loaf of bread as a sword in the middle of a vicious melee in the bakery.
Track'd.
Good to see this here. I think the people who are apprehensive about giving this story a chance probably don't understand that the 'pegacorn' race mentioned in the description is NOT the same as what Celestia and Luna are. I know I wasn't sure about that until I started reading.
To any weirdos reading comments before giving the story a chance (I do that all the time, lol), Rye is not an OC-alicorn, and is certainly not a mary sue. If anything, he's a cripple. And everyone knows cripples make the best action heroes.
In a shameless attempt to squeeze more bumps out of this, I'll be posting one chapter a day till I hit the number I currently have posted on EQD. The next few are kinda short, so be warned.
270220Its NOT Pegicorn!Its Alicorn!
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Read the comment two above you.
270234.........Derp
Awesome. This is one of my favourite stories. I can only hope it gets more views and reviews.
I'm definitely liking this story. As for short chapters, that's fine. May make for a shorter read, but sometimes they can help by moving things along. *looks at my own second story*......Maybe I need to learn that lesson a little better.
This story is pretty epic! I will be tracking this for updates in the future so please don't leave this tale unfinished. I look forward to reading the whole thing and adding it to my collection of MLP fiction stories.
I'm just glad somepony appreciates high-fiction things enough to write a fanfic in the same style.
If you ever do something like this again, how far back will you go? I had a thought about high-fiction ponies, and the possibility of pinto ponies; dwarf equivalent.
Dawn Sparkle?
Ancestor?
I find it interesting seeing Princess Celestia value the power of friendship thru out the story. Not directly controlling her subjects thru strength of arms or magic but thru friendship. She always stride to have her subjects understand this but most of her little ponies want only power or money.
Also find Rye Strudel to be a great character. Not because he has a horn and wings. He is strong because he is weak. And only the weak know value of strength. Know the value of power.
Friendship is real strength.
I'm resuming progress on this now that the semester is finished. Look for more updates next week.
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Woohoo! Seriously though, a Star-5 EQD story with less than 300 views on this site? Hopefully the updates will change that soon
YES!!
I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS TO UPDATE!!!!
this story is great please do keep updating
I had a feeling I'd already read this chapter... I guess I'll just have to wait for the next EQD update
Right, I should be getting most of the rest of these chapters posted soon. Also, 23-27 are nearly ready to be on EQD, so keep an eye out for them.
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awesome can't wait to see what nordic ponies are like in the north
I mean....... besides the violent fighting
Gonna have to re-read, it has been more than awhile. Anyway it's nice to see your posted here!
Good to see this updating again! Even if it's far behind EQD's google docs links. :P Can't wait for the actual continuation, lol.
I'm doing some rewrites of the first four chapters. Don't worry if you've already read them, I'm not changing any important details, but I feel that the current quality of these chapters does not match the later ones. I'll be changing them on here first (since I can do the individual chapters) and updating the EQD version later.
Again, don't bother re-reading them for any new information, I'm just touching up the prose.
619574 Heh, a little late... finally sat down and re-read everything. I was a bit disappointed since with all the recent posts it looked like there would be new chapters. Hopefully we get to see something new after the revisions. (If i'm not mistaken there's a couple more chapters to go before fimfiction is up to date with eqd)
Thanks for putting this up on fimfiction!
"The griffon war cry was replaced by screams and hoarse cries as they fell, pierced by the spears of the Equestrians."
Is it bad if I snickered at that?
Nice, can't wait until this is all up-to-date with the EQD version.
Why am I thinking Dragons? Is it because I played too much Warcraft 2?
I apologize for the state of things at the moment. Consider the fic under construction until the end of the week. There are plot holes and missing information ALL over some of these middling chapters due to some poor writing. I'll keep updating for the people already reading but I hope to have the rest of the fic up to quality standard by Thursday at the latest.
It still amazes me every time I see this chapter of how weak and incompetent Celestia can be.
When Celerity died my reaction was something like...
i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/191/579/65768%20-%20Lyra%20artist%253ALightbulb%20manly_tears%20parody%20reaction_face.png
Even though she went against Celestia she did it to save those that she was suppose to protect. And despite Celerity's plans to go against her and the Bluebloods I feel that she did the right thing, I believe that her reasoning's were sound and her heart was in the right place. But I guess sometimes there is no real right choice.
R.I.P Celerity, student of Celestia.
May she always be considered as one that died protecting her ponies.
She will be missed and always remembered.
For she was more than just a Student.
She was a friend.
And friendship never dies.
It was dragons. Nice to see I can still see them coming. I'm sad that Celerity died. Now if only Emmet would be so kind as to roll over and die as well. And maybe Celestia should stop trying to straddle the line and actually...I dunno...LEAD her people!
Wait Rye is 6 freaking years old?
They're horses, lol. Average life span is 30ish. Maturity-wise he's about 23-25. Inger is about 8, so he's closer to 26-28. Cranberry's pretty close to the same age as Rye.
Maybe I should write up an appendix for the ages, provinces, and background lore when this is done.
645013 Gotta love inconsistencies between stories. Chatoyance's converison bureau fics say ponies have an average lifespan of 150 years. (I like to think of it as canon, but that's just me) Though they mature by their twenties or so, the signs of aging generally don't show up until their final years. One pony lived as long as 300 years. (If you're wondering what fic, The Taste of Grass, chapter 29)
Not bl
A couple month hiatus, and suddenly its update after update... I'm stunned, seriously. Your speed is next to incredible. On top of that your chapters are still at the same high standard. It's hard not to love your characters.
Thank you for the update!
Ha, if only. These are all backlogged, mate. It's going to slow down to about one a week or less after we get to chapter 27.
I wonder what the General's planning to do with his aerial units. Between the dragons, the civil war, the massive and more experienced griffon army and the Sleipnords' own civil war, it'll be a miracle if Equestria manages to come out of this alive.
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And then they somehow incite a griffon civil war. Civil wars everywhere.
troll.me/images/toy-story-everywhere/toy-story-everywhere.png
I recommend "Adagio in D Minor" while reading the bit with the sun.
Her sister was her best friend and she had to banish her.
A Blueblood with the sense to know the truth when he hears it. To bad his sensability gets diluted so far in the future.
Only one more chapter until we're all caught up, I think?
Wow, this story's pretty much 100k words. Didn't realize it was that long already.
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And we're only a little over a third of the way through, eesh. Didn't realize quite how large it was going to be when I started.
Are we still working off your backlog of chapters or are you churning these out again?
These are the ones I did last week. New stuff will be a bit slower.
I said it on EQD, I'll say it here: I am excited for whatever she has planned, and I don't even know what it is. :D
I'm going to say it because nobody else will: Thank you for the update!
After a minute of thinking, I think I know the "how" to Windstreak's plan. Always fun to try and guess these things.
I really hope that when it comes down to the wire Clement turns out to be a good fighter, steady leader, and noble hero for ponies instead of a coward. Celestia knows the Equestrian army could use some more.
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Oh, I dropped plenty of clues for you. Enjoy the game.