My Little Hoof-Blood #1: The Shattered Armor

by Crystal_Clear123456

Spectra Shock

Silver waited a moment, then nodded. "Alright, but be careful when you start the quest. Changelings can trick you into being other ponies. Remember what happened to the Mane Six before they became goddesses?"

I nodded. They were fooled by Changelings and got confused on who was the real pony, so they nearly killed each other doing so. We walked through the Everfree Forest until we came to a tree. A zebra was inside, stirring up some brew.

We knocked on the door and the zebra looked up. Smiling, she came over and opened the door.

"Hello, my little hoof-blood friends!" Zecora said. "What help do you want me to lend?"

Iron cleared his throat. "How do we help my father?"

When Iron said that last word, Zecora's eyes glowed yellow. Yellowish smoke billowed around us and formed images.

"You shall travel west and seek the one in the cage.
You shall find the armor and help slow the change.
You will be stuck for some time in the queen's resent,
But you will fight your way out with the elements."

Zecora's eyes turned back to normal, and the yellow smoke vanished.

"You must get going, Spectra, Iron, and Cupcake," Zecora warned, "It won't be soon before our enemy will awake."

I nodded. "Thank you, lady Zecora," I said, bowing a little bit. Then we galloped back to camp.

Silver was waiting for us. "Well?" she asked us when we arrived.

"Zecora gave us the prophecy. It goes like this," I said the prophecy, and Silver nodded thoughtfully.

"Be on a lookout. Decipher the prophecy, and keep your senses sharp," she said. And with that, she disappeared in a poof of silver smoke.

I looked at Iron and Cupcake. "Well, I guess we can go," I said, "after I get some things from Cabin Eighteen to help my broken wing, and of course some other necessary things from Cabin Seven. You two need anything from Cabin Four and Cabin Ten?"

Iron nodded. "Yeah, hold on a bit. Just a couple of things... maybe some shields or something," he said, trotting off to his cabin.

"Oh, and we can't leave without..." Cupcake began, rushing to her cabin. She reappeared in a few seconds holding a box of cupcakes. "CUPCAKES!!!"

I sighed, but I let her keep the cupcakes. "Alright, alright. Just put them in your saddle bag. We'll eat them if we're hungry."

Iron came out of Cabin Four with three shields in his saddle bag. He pulled them out and gave one to each of us. We were about to set off when somepony from Cabin Five ran up to us and yelled, "Wait!"

Well, not really somepony. More like somedragon. He was a light purplish dragon-pony with a green mane. His eyes were the color of his mane, and his cutie mark is a scroll. He was holding something in his mouth. "Here, before you start your quest, take this," he handed us the thing, which was a rolled up map. "It will guide you to important places in Equestria." He paused. "Oh, and you will have a problem somewhere at the end of your journey, if I know where you're going. Almost all quests end with some sort of tight situation. To escape, you'll need to find three items scattered around Equestria. Each one can help one. I forgot what they were, but they'll save you, alright."

"Thanks, Dragon Scroll," I said before he turned around back to his cabin.

Iron took the scroll using his unicorn magic and unrolled it. On it showed a map of Equestria, but there were no words on it. Then, as we looked closer, I realized that there were some Ancient Greek words on it. I didn't get that at first, but I realized that Equestria has some Greek bases.

I deciphered the words almost immediately. There was one group of words by Ponyville which read: η Βιβλιοθήκη - The Library.

"So... one of these things is in the Golden Oak library, where the goddess Twilight Sparkle used to live?" I asked Iron, who nodded.

"Yeah. I wonder what the things are...?" he said.

When we reached Ponyville, I looked at our map, and we trotted towards the Golden Oak library. It was basically a giant oak tree that was hollowed out for a library. Books filled the bookshelves and stacks of two or three lay on the table in the center. A flight of stairs led to three bedrooms which were currently vacant.

I peeked into one of the rooms and decided to stay there for the night. I dropped by saddlebag by the door of the room and walked back down to join my friends, who were studying the map.

"So," I asked, "What do you think we have to find?"

Cupcake looked up - for once she was serious like the rest of us are. "Well, have you heard of how Equestria came to be?" she asked me.

I shook my head. "No," I said, "How?"

She was pointing at an open book. "It says here that there were three tribes - earth ponies, unicorns, and Pegasi. Each searched for new land for them to live. But they apparently found the same land, so they argued over it. But their hatred caused the Windigos to make it colder than ever, and the tribes learned to be kind to one another, thus sharing the land and calling it Equestria."

Iron and I listened to the story, and soon I realized what these items might be. "Cupcake, you said that the originating tribes were the earth ponies, unicorns, and Pegasi, right?"

Cupcake nodded. "Absolutely!"

"Well, I think that these elements are one of earth ponies, unicorns, and Pegasi." I concluded.

Comments

[Normal]

Slow down and give detail. A character's description should be sprinkled for the readers sake, not all dumped on us at once. Especially not before the story begins. In less than a thousand words we already have the main characters being attacked...and what do we know about our setting?

Sometimes setting up action right away is a good way to book a reader. But since it happened at the end of the chapter I don't think that was what you were going for. Since that is the case I really have to tell you to set up the surroundings some before there are life threatening attacks. Right now I wouldn't feel anything if a changeling ripped out cupcake's throat. I wouldn't even know where her blood would spray because I have no idea what their surrounding look like!

Sorry for getting a bit repeative.

[Crystal_Clear123456]

4215162
Well, this was made quite a while ago, and I haven't exactly thought of that before. At the time, I was just interested in actually getting the story into play so it might not be the best I could actually do. Sorry though
Oh, and they're able to fight them on a "rapidly moving vehicle" because the bus pulls over and stops. for a while.

[Crystal_Clear123456]

4215282
Well, as for the setting, didn't I say Manehattan? And the camp is in the Everfree Forest. For the characters... Yes, I'm sorry that I didn't describe them all that well. Like I said to CloudySkies, this was made a while ago (two months ago, really) and it isn't my best. So I'm sorry if it's kinda bad

[Normal]

4215544
Just knowing the city is not enough, act if your reader doesn't have extensive knowledge of the location. Part of the setting is the scent, the smell, the taste, the sound, and the feel.

You don't need to give all of those, but sight at the very least needs to be stimulated. I'll give just a short example of Manehatten for fun, typed on my phone.

Imagine Manehatten if you will, it's spiraling towers so graceful and high. It was seen as the marvel of the century, a city that grew up into the sky instead of across the vast plains of Equestria. But that was what somepony would see only if they did not live there themselves.

For those that lived there, it was a claustophobic jungle of iron trees and concrete floors.

Never mind, i got bored. But as you can see...

[FairyFun]

SEQUEL!!! If you don´t continue this series