At the Inn of the Prancing Pony

by McPoodle

Preface

At the Inn of the Prancing Pony

A Fictive Reimagining of the Early Monarchy

By L. P.

(Edited by McPoodle and Hope)

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Preface

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The story you are about to read is a work of fiction.

I wouldn’t have to point this out if I was writing for an audience of my fellow ponies.

Back in Equestria, the period immediately following the banishment of Nightmare Moon is a period of intense interest to both scholars and layponies alike. Sociologists use it to seek out the mythical “base state” of pony society, the way it supposedly would be under minimal influence from the Princesses. To the general public, it is the setting of A Mare Forsaken, the oldest play still considered part of the classical repertoire.

It goes without saying that it is an era of which I have no first-hoof knowledge. It is also not an era that the main character in these proceedings is prepared to discuss at length, for reasons that I hope should be obvious.

My interest—besides the familial—rests on the idea of how a civilization may be rebuilt, how such a rebuilding may in fact be justified, when the fall is not the work of a mad god or a schizoid populace, but rather a natural response to a justifiable act: what if Princess Celestia, instead of slogging through her loss like she actually did, instead did what any normal pony would do in her situation...and gave up?

—L. P.

Author's Note:

As the description of this story indicates, this is both a prequel and a sequel to “The Best of All Possible Worlds”. It is a prequel in that it takes place right after the banishment of Nightmare Moon, and thus seven centuries before that story. But it is also a sequel, in that it is being written by a pony, and you might find reading “Parade Coverage” useful to understanding this pony’s thought processes. Now the last time I let an Equestrian borrow my account to post a story, that pony author wished to remain anonymous; but this time, I am the one who is insisting that the author not reveal herself—even though I imagine a fair number of you have already guessed her identity. My reason is to try to delay as long as possible the backlash from the pony press that I’m certain will break out when the knowledge that this individual is writing a fictional story about Princess Celestia becomes widespread—the inevitable speculation that anything said or done with the character of Celestia in this story is in some way an expression of opinion or wish-fulfillment regarding the actual Princess Celestia. Therefore, I ask that anybody commenting on this story please refrain from using the author’s name or her job title, at least until the Canterlot Clarion or some other rag reveals her identity.

If you are willing to accept this restriction, then in return I will allow the author to use my account to reply to any comments that she wishes. Basically, unless you see the text in orange, you should assume that it’s the author and not I (McPoodle) doing the talking.

I understand that excessive role-playing has been found to be bad for the long-term health of this site’s server, and so I will impose two rules that I hope will keep me out of trouble with the admins: no asking the author questions about any subject outside of the story, and no multiple-comment conversations (that rule will be up to me to enforce, obviously, by restraining from the temptation to reply to really good replies).

Oh, and the author has informed me that she’s interested in using my blog to post occasional essays on topics that interest her. I’ll tentatively let this go forward, pending reader interest. This means that the majority of blogs linked to this story are more about the author than about the story (and of course the same no role-playing rules will apply to them as well). Let me know if that bugs you, and I’ll stop.

Comments

[DannyJ]

This is some meta kind of shit right here.

[Flynt Coal]

4217208 And you would know all about being meta, of course!

As for the story itself, it definitely looks very interesting and worth checking out, but it looks like I'd have one Hell of an archive binge. Just another thing to add to the "read later" list I suppose.