Writer's Training Ground Entries!

by pertelote345

The First Prince: an Unexpected Meeting

Author's Note:

This story is a side story to my larger fic The First Prince, which can be found here:
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/07/story-first-prince_31.html

This story jumps forward in time a bit so WARNING, MINOR SPOILERS

Also fun, this story has a text adventure, with a picture of two of the characters mentioned:
http://www.java-gaming.org/topics/wounded-an-mlp-text-adventure/31437/view.html

One

The stallion of my dreams flew, literally flew over to the bed and laid down on his back, giving me a sultry look as he spread his gorgeous white wings over the covers.

I climbed on top of him and let my long golden mane tickle him as I whispered in his ear. "So Captain... what would you like to do tonight?"

In lieu of responding he nibbled at my neck. I bopped him playfully on the nose and brought my lips to his. He held me tight and our tongues wrestled as-

"Wow! It's exactly the same!" Came a high pitched, chipper, and very familiar voice.

My eyes bulged. I rolled off of Heart and frantically yanked the covers over myself. "LUNA, NOT COOL!"

Luna stepped back, shocked. "I- "

I fumbled for a candle and grumbled. "Luna, seriously we've been over this. If a door is locked, that means you're not supposed to teleport through it. It's common courtesy! If you need me, you're supposed to... " I blinked. I think my white coat got paler.

I leapt off the bed. "Oh no, sweetie are you alright? Has there been another attack? Has Empire-?"

She held up her hooves. "No! No! Everything's fine Blueblood! I just wanted to see if I could come inside and talk."

I let out a breath. Okay, so not an emergency. I rubbed my head with a hoof and considered fishing out my glasses. I only used them for reading, but I swear they added just that right air of dignity that a good lecture needed.

"Luna," I began "We're all very impressed with you're blooming magical abilities, but just because you can teleport through a door doesn't mean it's the right thing to do so."

"But I didn't teleport!" The alicorn filly protested.

"So what, you picked the lock? The same principle applies." I turned back to the bed. "Heart can you-" I froze.

Lying on the bed where Captain Heart once lay was a massive, curvy banana with huge white wings.

I staggered back. I couldn't breathe. MY COLTFRIEND WAS A FRUIT!

...

Okay, shut up.

A soft object plopped itself onto my head. I shook myself in panic and a giant popcorn kernel rolled off my forehead and into my closet where it began dancing with one of my legal textbooks.

I blinked. I turned back to young alicorn. "Luna, explain."

She smiled. "I'm in your dreams! Isn't it cool?"

My eyes went wide. "Wait... so you can go into people's dreams now? Like all of their personal, private..."

"Yes, yes she can." Came another voice.

Heart walked in the door. He was trailed by a giant doughnut. The banana from my bed hopped up and slipped itself through the doughnut's hole, wearing it like a ring before flying off out the window.

We paused for a moment as we all tried very hard not to think about that.

I turned to the newly arrived Guard Captain. His hair was a bit tousled, but he'd slipped his armor on with the careful, military precision to which I'd become accustomed. Still he looked more than a little tired and confused...

I walked right up and gave him a hug. It was him. I could tell.

He hugged me back. "Good to see you too."

Luna grinned. "See! This is awesome. Now you can spend time together when you sleep just like you wanted."

Hart immediately started to say something, but had a bit of trouble forming words. I stepped in to rescue him. "Luna, that's very nice of you, but we really need to talk about this new ability of yours. It could be really dangerous."

I regretted those words almost as soon as I said them.

Luna looked down. "Oh..."

This time Heart saved me. "Luna, it's not like that, we just want to make sure this new ability of yours isn't going to..."

"Destroy the world?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

Heart grimaced, "I was going to say hurt you."

She wasn't convinced. "You know what?" she said. "Just forget about it, I'll just hide this one away. Like everything else." That said, she vanished.

The second she left Heart turned to me and asked, "We have to follow her. How do we pull it off?" Then, being the single best being in all of creation he went over to my end table and offered me my glasses.

I slipped them on and started pacing. "I love you so much... Right, okay, so we're still sleeping and if she just faded away then most likely she's out of our dreams and off sulking in her room or on the battlements somewhere... But we can't get to her from here."

I turned back to him. "I need you to hit me as hard as you can!"

"What!" He sputtered, backing away. "I'm not going to hit you!"

I put a hoof on his shoulder. "Heart, we have to wake up! Otherwise who knows how long we'll be stuck asleep?"

Heart groaned. "... How do you even know that will work?"

"I don't," I replied, "but we have to try something."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, second question, why should I hit you? I move faster. If you hit me, I could wake you up and get us searching like that!" He said clapping his fore-hooves together

I sighed. "Look, why don't we just headbutt each other! Then if pain works we'll both wake up."

He blinked. "I... guess we could try that?"

He took off his helmet. I took off my glasses. We put our hooves on each other's shoulders and eyed each other awkwardly.

Heart Grimaced, "This really isn't the kind of physical activity I was hoping for tonight."

I nodded. "I know the feeling... On the count of three?"

He let out a breath "One... Two..."

#

One

"So..." I began, slipping up next to the alicorn filly on the battlements. "It turns out psychosomatic pain is very real..." I jiggled the ice pack strapped to my head.

She didn't respond. She just stared out at the horizon.

I followed her gaze to the stars over Everfree. The moon.shone down so bright and full that the trees around us seemed to glow.

"It's really beautiful out here." I said.

She looked down. "You're about the only one who thinks so."

I put a hoof on her shoulder. "You are a talented, incredible filly. Someday you're going to grow into an amazing mare and ponies are going to learn to appreciate you."

She shook her head, "Blueblood, every power I get, every time my magic get's stronger or something changes ponies just get more and more scared. Now I can barely stay up during the day and... I guess I can see into dreams?" She looked up at me. "For a moment there, for just a moment... I felt like this time it was going to be different, like I'd have a chance to go in there and talk to ponies, to help them."

She paused for a moment. "Did... Did you know that Wind flies in her dreams?"

I blinked, my friend Wind was a pegasus who had lost her wings a long time ago. "No..." I said. "I had no idea."

"In her dreams she just flies around in a maze of clouds. She's free, but she's always alone." She turned away. "I know she likes Celestia a lot more than me..."

"Luna, she's your sister's cardiologist!" I interjected, "Wind spends time with her because we're worried about her heart condition."

She groaned "I know, I know, but I feel like she's important to you and I never talk to her. I felt like maybe if I could visit her in her dreams then maybe... we could fly together, and I could have another friend for real."

There was a pause.

"I think..." I said finally, "I think that might be a really good idea."

She looked up at me. "What?"

"Don't get me wrong," I said. "Dreams are private. You'll have to treat this power with a lot of respect and have some rules... But I think you can do a heck of a lot of good with this."

I ruffled her mane. "And if you ever want some company, don't be afraid to call on your big bro... After knocking. I mean, I'll have to figure out a way to hang a door on my subconscious, but with all the magic we throw around here how hard can that be?"

Luna smiled. It was so darn good to see."Want to see some shooting stars?" She asked.

"I'd like that."

#

Twenty Three

"And that's how I became guardian of dreams." Luna said, taking a sip from her tea.

I groaned and levitated up my own cup, wishing it was something stronger. "You know, you could have told that story without the graphic descriptions of my ancestors sex life."

The goddess of the night rolled her eyes. "If you think that was graphic young Blueblood, then this millennia is even more prudish then I thought."

*Tick... tick... tick..."

She eyed the clock and put down her cup. "In any case I must be going. Twilight Sparkle wanted to consult with me on some of her findings from our old castle. Thank you for the tea." She made her way to the door.

"Um... Luna." I croaked out.

She paused. "Yes?" she asked.

"Two things..." I began. "Firstly, I... I thank you for agreeing to speak with me about this."

She blinked. "You are welcome, I suppose."

"Secondly..." I continued. I let out a breath, wondering what I was getting myself into. "Would... Would you still like some company? In your dream duties, I mean."

She tilted her head, her expression was unreadable.

"I will consider it." She said finally.

Then she left.

Comments

[A Random Guy]

Alright, fine story, not much wrong with the writing style. But if you want to improve it, read books. Not much else to say about that.

Now, on to the only massive problem that kills the story a bit. *ahem*

I have no idea who these characters are!

Luna, I know. She's the Princess of the night. Or is she not the princess here? When you introduced her into the story, I thought she was full grown. Nope, couple paragraphs in, she's a filly. Don't do that. You can have her any age you want her to be, and you can have any character you want be what you want. That's one of the joys of writing. But you need to describe the changes you've made to an established character when introducing that character for the first time and you have to do it on the spot, or else you get people coming in thinking "Haha, Luna doesn't know about privacy. All those years on the moon must have done that to her- oh wait, she's a filly".

Also, who's Blueblood in this story? At first I thought it was from a girl's point of view, then it turned out to be a guy, then it turned out to be Blueblood, then it turned out to be his ancestor, and then it shifted to another Blueblood, who may be the one from the show or a different one. No clue there.

That's why you should establish who you're characters are before you leave your readers confused. In this case, you can have the Captain say something brief that will indicate that the current Blueblood is not the one from the show and is, in fact, a guy. Then you can introduce Luna as a filly to cement the fact that this is an ancestor of Blueblood.

And one last thing, keep in mind that Author's notes can be intrusive to the reader if put at the front. just saying.

[pertelote345]

4153227
Generally I would agree with both of your secondary comments about character establishment and the author's note, and I know that responding directly to critiques is always a little dicey, but I feel like a very important bit of information was overlooked here:

I put the author's note in there at the beginning to point out that this piece is in fact a side story to a larger work which can be found here:
http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/07/story-first-prince_31.html

Now, saying that doing a side story using characters established elsewhere for something like the Writer's Training Grounds is pretty legitimate, but I feel as though it is undercut somewhat by the fact that you are working on a multi-part story for the training grounds (which I am working on the critique for, I'm quite sorry for the delay on that, but I've been entertaining for the past day).

Note, your criticisms are completely fair and correct, it's just that I feel like this story works much better when it is viewed as part of a whole as I intended. Still, it is my fault as a writer for not making that intent clear to you. Do you have any suggestions for how I could make it more obvious that this is a side story?

[A Random Guy]

4155928 Best place to mention that this is a side story would be the end of a description or at the bottom of the author's note. But within the chapter (if there are no previous chapters in the current story that explains things, keep that in mind), assume the reader knows nothing of the universe. Assume that what the reader is reading right now isn't a side story, but a new world that he/she is being introduced to.

It's not going to be viewed as part of a whole if someone's looking at it for the first time. It's going to be viewed as a stand alone thing.

As for my multiparter, I do have something to say about that, but talking about that here will undermine your story, so if you want to bring that up in your review of mine, go ahead.