Chapter 2: Evensong Lightning
Snips led Snails through the countryside, on a trail in a wide arc west around Sweet Apple Acres, cutting briefly through the West Orchards -- where a flock of vampire fruitbats, rising and fluttering their membranous wings, briefly startled the two friends. Snips gave a wide berth to the Cutie Mark Crusader clubhouse, a choice of course for which Snails was profoundly grateful. He didn't want to face Sweetie Belle, or really any of the fillies, right after that embarrassing accidental display.
The trees grew thicker and older as they passed the western side of Sweet Apple Acres, moving farther south. Technically, this side of the river was not the Everfree but rather a continuation of the Vale of Avalon, which had been far more sparsely settled. The woods were much more like the gentler forests of the White Tails to the west, rather than the maze of boles, vines and thickets that characterized the true Everfree. Sweet Apple Acres itself was a strong guardian of the lands to the north and west, through which few large predators ventured.
Here, settlements were few and far between. The villages between here and Nickerlite, fifty miles to the west, or Appleloosa, some two hundred miles to the south, were mostly stretched along the rail lines, the first of which was already far to their north and the second of which made a wide western loop to avoid the woods before turning south towards Ghastly Gorge and, ultimately, the southern plains.
Tiny farms and small steadings were scattered through this woods country, linked by narrow dirt roads that twisted and turned most confusingly. Miss Cheerilee had told them once that some of these had started as Deer trails, and, walking over them, Snails could easily believe that she was right. Certainly, they had not been laid out with anything less agile than a cart, or less sturdy than a Cownestoga wagon in mind. Most standard Pony wagons would have broken an axle or bogged on the first mile of this trail.
The locals -- generally called the "Whiteys" in Ponyville -- owned small farms, mostly on marginal land, worked spasmodically with obsolete equipment, resulting in poor yields. Some were squatters, though in many cases for generations, and their land claims were thus good enough under the laws of Equestria.
Snails knew all this from his aunt Golden Harvest, familiarly known as "Carrot Top," who herself only worked a small holding, but on better land, and far better-tended than the Whitey steadings. She had always been glad that her family held the old Carrot claim they'd purchased from the Apples generations ago, instead of having to make do as best they could in the White Tails.
Carrot Top's gardens produced an ample surplus each year, and sold it for enough at the Ponyville market to buy not only the produce of other farms, but enough store-bought goods to enjoy a moderately comfortable existence. She was not wealthy, like the Sweet Apple Acre Smith Apples; however there was nothing really important for which she lacked, and she could even afford a few luxuries. Her surplus was even enough to employ some extra hooves at busy times, something Snails knew well, as it had put some bits in his sidebags since he'd gotten big enough to really help out.
Things were different in the White Tails, Carrot Top had told her nephew. There, because the farms produced but little over subsistence, they could not specialize and sell their surpluses at market to buy much from the stores. Instead, they had to raise a little of everything on each farm, and supplement it by wandering the woods gathering -- some of the Whiteys even hunting. They also made most of what else they needed on their own lands, which meant that much of it was low quality, as no one farm family could have the talents to make everything.
Sometimes, though, one of the Whiteys was talented at making something for which there was considerable demand, and then she could trade it for enough bits to make a good living for her family. Sometimes such fortunate folk moved into town. Sometimes, though, they remained out in the woods, for the Whiteys were stubborn and sometimes secretive Ponies, who did not lightly leave their ancestral lands, regardless of how they had acquired title.
It was one of these to whom Snips was leading Snails, to transact some business.
***
"His name's White Lightning," Snips informed him with an air of authority. "I found out about him from some of the older stallions about town. They've sometimes started letting me run around with them, since I turned sixteen," he added, smiling rather smugly. "They usually just call him 'Whitey.'"
"They're all Whiteys," pointed out Snails. "But I know an Evie Lightning. She sings for the Ponyville chorus. I knew her when I sang with them." Snails had once had a really good singing voice, a clear contralto -- he could even sing mezzosoprano, back then. But in the last few years his voice had increasingly been unable to reach the higher notes, and he figured he was ruined for singing.
The part of him that was Glittershell -- she was really sad about losing her vocal range, though she still loved to sing for herself, and listen to songs. Lately, Glittershell been spending a lot of time with Sweetie Belle, encouraging her to sing, and to sing more in front of others. Sweetie was shy about singing in front of most Ponies, though not in front of her family or a few friends, in whose number Glittershell was proud to be included. Sometimes they did duets together.
"That's his wife," said Snips. "She's really nice, feeds me sometimes when I come by their farm. Cookies, pieces of pie. She's a really good baker." He drooled slightly, in memory of previous meals.
Snails remembered that Evie had been really nice. She was an excellent singer, too. Her voice one of the best he'd ever heard -- up there with Rarity's and almost as good as Sweetie Belle's. As her Cutie Mark was musical notes, it only made since that singing was her true Talent. Too bad she never sang anywhere more public than Ponyville.
Sometimes somepony never got to use their main talent in their job, Snails knew. And he supposed that his would never be much good. He'd always kind of liked snails; there was something about their slow-but-steady determination that was kind of cute, and their shells kept them safe from things that ate them. There was something weird about the way they made babies; Miss Cheerilee had once told him how -- something about stabbing one another with natural spears, which sounded both nasty and painful. They were neither really male or female the same way Ponies were -- that was something to which his Snails exterior and the Glittershell hidden within could certainly sympathize.
But snails were useless. Worse, they were garden pests, as Carrot Top occasionally pointed out to him rather vehemently when his own stupidity or clumsiness had done something to annoy her. Snails the Pony often felt pretty useless too, when he wasn't fantasizing about someday becoming famous on the stage, like his idol, the Great and Powerful Trixie. In his more realistic moods, Snails knew this was unlikely to happen. These thoughts were depressing, so he preferred to practice magic tricks and dances and songs and hope against hope that somepony would like his routines someday.
Such ruminations had occupied him to the point that he accompanied Snips in silence, as the shorter colt -- no, stallion, Snails remembered -- led him through the tiny village of White Hollow and down a little lane to Lightning Hall, as the name painted with surprisingly precise and delicate lettering on the mail-box proclaimed the place to be named.
"And here we are," Snips announced, his utterance distracting Snails from his thoughts. "The Lightning residence."
'Here' was a relatively-large but tumbledown house of indeterminate and apparently-mixed age. The main part looked as though it had begun life as a log cabin, with wings and stories then added on slapdash, almost as if they had mushroomed from the initial structure rather than being added in any normal sense. There were porches, exterior stairs, balconies and outbuildings. It was incorrect to call the resultant structure 'unpainted' -- it would be more accurate to say that it had been repeatedly painted, badly and in poorly-matched color schemes, and that the layers of paints had then peeled in ways which presented a decidedly-patchwork manner.
Snails' talent did not lie in the realm of fashion, either, but Glittershell had been friends with Rarity Belle for the last two and a half years, and specifically her disciple in aesthetic matters. Rarity had extremely good taste, and Glittershell had acquired enough by association that she instinctively shuddered at the sight of this structural monstrosity. That's just wrong, Glittershell thought, in concepts Rarity had taught her. Noponies but the family who lives here could possibly like this place!
On the front porch, an old mare dozed in a rocking chair, blankets bundled about her against the slight April nip in the wind. She had a reddish-purple coat, and wisps of a faded brownish-gray mane peeping out from her bonnet. Her face was wrinkled, with a long scar on her right cheek. A corncob pipe dangled from the other side of her mouth, though any fire kindled within had long since died out.
"That's Mare Lightning," whispered Snips. "Evie's mom."
"Oh," said Snails. He'd seen her once, complete with scar but considerably less wrinkles, when Evie sang in Ponyville over five years ago, the winter before the Return of Luna. She'd aged a lot over those five-plus years. "Why are we whispering?" he asked.
"It'd be rude to wake her," Snips explained, in an increasingly loud stage-whisper.
They walked up the rough wooden stairs to the front door. It was a big oaken door, looked to be nice solid wood, though a layer of light-green paint over white paint was peeling here as well, revealing little bits of a still-earlier orange coat., Glittershell vaguely wondered how many coats of paint lay one under the next on that door.
The floor boards of the porch sqeaked loudly as the two colts ... stallions stepped before the door. Snails hastily glanced at Mare Lightning. Her face and ears twitched slightly, but she still seemed to be sleeping.
Snips regarded the door. There was a big brass knocker, which was strangely well-polished given the paint's state of delapidation. His horn glowed, his aura enveloped the door-knocker, and with an air of great deliberation, rapped it soundly, hard enough to rattle the bulky door within its frame.
"Gah!" yelled the old mare, starting almost entirely out of her chair. The blanket fell about her feet.
"Sorry, Ma'am," said Snips, looking sheepish.
"Yeah," added Snails. "We did not mean to wake you up." His aura enveloped the blanket and carefully draped it back into position to keep Mare Lightning warm.
She looked at them with narrowed eyes for a moment. "Some say," she began, "that a body kin either be honest, or clever." She peered into Snips' own eyes. "Son, are you honest?"
"Oh, yes! Always!" Snips assured her.
She switched her gaze to Snails.
"I try to be," Snails said. "I cannot always be."
Mare grinned broadly. "Now, chile," she said. "That's what they call a parry-dox."
"I don't get it," broke in Snips.
"Me neither," admitted Snails.
She smiled even more broadly, mischief twinkling in her grayish-brown eyes. "Why, Ah think yer both very honest!" she said, laughing.
Snails found himself laughing too, and a moment later Snips joined in. She was a nice old lady, and it was easy to laugh along with her merriment.
The door swung suddenly inward.
Snips and Snails almost jumped out of their skins in surprise. Their emotional state was not eased by the appearance of the Pony who loomed there, scowling down at them.
He was a huge brown stallion, almost the height of Big Mac and built even more broadly. His coat was dappled with lighter and darker patches, his long lanky black mane unkempt and wild. Beneath ears high with hostility, little bloodshot dark-brown eyes glared at them.
"What do yew want?" he asked suspiciously. A strong smell of alcohol and ill-digested food wafted from his mouth as as he opened his powerful jaws to speak, fouling the local atmosphere.
Snips shrank back against Snails, cowering against his friend's forelegs in shock at this fierce apparition, ears pulling back and eyes rolling in terror.
Snails' own legs trembled in instinctive fear of a bigger and obviously-angry stallion, but he recognized who it was.
"L-l-l-lamp?" he asked. He remembered meeting Lampert Lightning when he came in the audience to one of the choruses five years ago. The big stallion had seemed even bigger back then, probably because Snails had been a lot smaller. "It's me ... Snails ... Snailsquirm Carrot," he said.
Lamp's scowl broke up in confusion. He tilted his huge head and closely scrutinized the lanky younger stallion.
"Snails?" he said uncertainly. "You've shore grown ..."
"Yeah," said Snails proudly. "I'm sixteen!"
At this Lamp's features shifted alarmingly, into a broad grin. "Wal ain't that something! You'll be near as big as me if'n you keep shootin' up like that!" He extended a foreleg and swept Snails up into a hug, not bothering to find out first if Snails wanted to be hugged.
Snails laughed half-nervously, but did not resist after an initial startled squirm. Glittershell wasn't quite sure about how to feel about this unexpected close physical contact with a full-grown stallion toward whom she felt no particular emotional attraction, but acquiesced, in part because she realized that Lamp had no way of knowing about that aspect of Snails' personality; what's more, she instinctively felt that it might be safer if Lamp didn't. He was a rather unrestrained stallion, both in suspicion and in friendliness, and Glittershell had a inchoate sense that there were lots of ways an encounter like this might go wrong, were her existence suspected.
"Lamp!" came a female voice from within. "Are you tryin' to pick up and carry off our guests again?"
"No, Maw," Lamp said, suddenly sounding just like a small colt despite his basso voice. "Ah'm just sayin' 'howdy' to an ol' friend!" He demonstrated by turning around, pulling Snails into the doorway without first putting him down, as if he were retrieving an errant pet that had wandered outside. Thankfully, he was careful enough to avoid banging Snails into the door-frame in the process.
"Hi, Snails!" said Evensong Lightning.
Snails could see her laying on the main couch, a open lyrics book next to an open box of chocolates on her parlor table. Evie Lightning was even rounder than he remembered, a fat dark-blue Earth Pony mare with a dark-purple mane and violet eyes; rather aristocratic coloration for a Pony who was most definitely back-country. Her flank bore a white pair of musical notes on a purple field.
Evensong smiled warmly at Snails, and he remembered why in his memories she had always been beautiful, rather than homely -- it was almost as if her whole face lit up. She must have been past forty by now, and her face was plain and well-worn by life -- but her smile was that of an especially friendly filly. It changed everything.
"You can put him down, Lamp dear, I don't think he's trying to run away." Her voice was sweetly musical, even in ordinary speech.
"Okay, Maw," replied Lamp, depositing Snails gently on the floor.
Snails looked around the parlor. He had never been to Lightning Hall, nor anywhere in White Hollow, before.
The parlor showed evidence of wealth, or at least accumulation. There was an abundance of furniture, most of it overstuffed and much of it in some need of repair. In some cases old furniture had collapsed and new furniture been positioned atop the old. There was a big fireplace, on the mantel of which were a variety of statuettes and decorations, and above which were proudly mounted two hunting crossbows and a pair of spears with cross-staffs for protecting the wielders against big game. There were all sorts of odd pieces of furniture with drawers and shelves, most of which held more decorative objects of every conceivable variety. Trophies, of the heads of dangerous beasts, had been more or less expertly preserved and stuffed, glowered over the room from their mountings. There were a lot of empty brown jugs, some of which had been converted into flower pots, and some of which seemed to be just lying around waiting to be (hopefully) washed and then re-used for their designed purpose.
Evie motioned Snails to one of the overstuffed chairs.
"Sit down, dear colt, sit down," she offered Snails. "Would you like some chocolates?"
Snails might have been a stallion now, but he was still colt enough to nod eagerly at the offer.
"May I have some too?" asked Snips, who had come into the room as soon as Evie mentioned chocolate.
Evie nodded agreeably, and soon the two colts ... stallions ... were happily munching on Evie's chocolate, while Lamp gathered up some of the surplus brown jugs and put them into crates.
"Are you sure we're not taking too much?" asked Snails, as he made himself comfortable. Rarity had warned Glittershell not to be a greedy guest.
"Oh, don't worry about it," laughed Evie. "We've been doing well here, especially after Tirek attacked -- we saw a lot of that from a hill. My Whitey's business has been booming ever since then." She leaned forward and popped another chocolate in her mouth.
"Gee, that's good," said Snails. "We've missed you in Ponyville in the last few years. Hope you're doing well."
"I've missed you too," replied Evie. "I've been feeling a mite poorly, of late. My legs have been getting tingly, and sometimes sore. It gets to be a bother to walk all the way to Ponyville at times."
"I'm sorry to hear that," said Snails. "You were always real nice to me at choir."
"Are you still singing?" asked Evie.
"I kind of got out of it," Snails said. He looked sad. "I really liked it, but then my voice changed and I kept breaking on all the high parts. I'm trying to get good at stage magic now. I'm sort of friends with this magician now, the Great and Powerful Trixie, and she sometimes shows me some basic tricks."
"Trixie Lulamoon?" Evie asked. When Snails nodded, she continued: "I caught her act once, in Nickerlite. She nearly set the stage on fire with her sparklers, but she was good aside from that, and she covered it up nicely. Tough on hecklers, but she's got talent."
"Yeah!" Snails said enthusiastically. "She's the greatest."
"She did a song and dance as part of her act, too," added Evie. "Has she ever heard you sing?"
"Yeah," said Snails, blushing a bit, "but she didn't seem very impressed."
"Mmm," said Evie. "Was your voice breaking by then?"
"Yeah," said Snails for the third time, looking down in shame. "I really sucked."
"Maybe," said Evie. "And maybe not. See, I think that your problem is that you're trying to sing in the wrong register."
"What do you mean?" asked Snails. "What register should I be trying to sing in? I was just singing the way I always have, but it didn't work so well."
"It's like this, Snails. I remember how you sang when you were just a colt. You were somewhere around mezzosoprano ... that's an Istallion term refering to the fifth singing register, ranging from basso for very low voices to soprano for very high ones. Generally speaking, stallions sing the three lower registers -- basso, baritone and tenor; mares sing the three higher ones: contralto, mezzosoprano and soprano. I do best singing soprano, I've always had a rather fillyish voice, though it's been long since I've had a fillyish figure." She chuckled merrily at this. "Now, children tend to have high voices -- fillies mezzosoprano to soprano, colts tenor to contralto, though some colts sing rather high, mezzosoprano like you or even true soprano." She shuddered at some unspoken though. "Be glad you're not in Istallia in the olden days -- sometimes they made sure a colt with a really good mezzosoprano or soprano singing voice kept it."
"That doesn't sound so bad," Snails commented.
"You wouldn't like what they did to them to make sure they kept it," replied Evie darkly. "Well, we don't do that in Equestria, never have. And your voice has already changed, so there's no danger of that now." She got up, went to a shelf which had some books on it, pulled one out. The title was The Complete Handbook of Voice Training, and it had seen some hard usage. "Let's hear what's going on in your pipes, Snails."
Snips watched and listened, muching chocolates and some little tea-biscuits that Evie had Lamp fetch from the pantry, while Evie put Snails through some vocal scales. Snails might have felt a little self-conscious about this, had not singing had been fairly normal for him until recently, and hanging around Trixie had gotten him increasingly more comfortable with the notion of public performances.
In the end, Evie nodded with satisfaction. "Snails," she said, "You need to sing contralto or tenor now. Your range is centered around middle C. You can extend it a bit in either direction with practice, but you're just going to strain your vocal cords if you spend too much time up at high A or above."
"But I used to like hitting those high notes," Snails groused.
"And I used to like climbing trees," replied Evensong. "Ain't neither of us can do everything we once could." She smiled. "We can do new things, though, and get good at them. And Snails ...?" She smiled even more warmly.
"Hmm?" Snails asked.
"You still have a really good voice. You could be a great singer, with practice. You can even sing pretty high, for a stallion -- contralto's actually the lower end of the normal female range." She laughed. "Why, if we gussied you up right, maybe a dress long in the back, we could put you on stage as a girl singer!" She giggled merrily at the thought, winking at Snails to show that she meant no malicious mockery by her little joke.
Snails didn't mind at all. For a great glorious vision had come suddenly to him.
He was standing on stage, in front of a large audience, in some vast theatre, like the Baltimare Hippodrome which Trixie had told him about. Only he was being Glittershell, and Glittershell was right out in the open with everypony seeing her and loving her. She was in a long green glittery gown, so that nopony could see her embarrassing stallion parts, or maybe by then she'd gotten changed into a real mare so she had no embarrassing stallion parts.
And she sang for them, her voice a husky contralto rather than the mezzosoprano it had been when she was small, but in its own way as good as Sweetie Belle's (or almost as good; even in her fantasy Glittershell knew it was unlikely she'd ever be as good a singer as Sweetie Belle). And the audience applauded and cheered her at the end, throwing flowers, and shouting out "Glittershell! Glittershell! Glittershell!"
"Wow," said Snips, swallowing the last biscuit. There was chocolate smeared around his mouth. "You must really like the idea of becoming a singer."
"Eh?" asked Snails, suddenly snapping back to reality.
"You had your eyes closed, and you were smiling -- and maybe drooling a little," Snips informed his friend.
"Oh," said Snails. He thought a bit. "Yeah," he said. "I suppose I really do!" He looked at Evie. "Thank you, Mrs. Lightning, for showing me that it was still possible."
"Oh, any time," replied Evie, broadly beaming. "I could have become a professional singer once -- it was one of my fillyhood dreams -- but I chose to stay in White Hollow and raise my foals. They're all big now. Some bigger than'n others --" she looked fondly at Lamp, who grinned back at her. "Midge's made me a grandma twice, so far. The twins are full-grown, and still scamps -- too busy runnin' around the woods hunting to get to courtin', but there's no rush. An' even lil' Ermie's thirteen -- got her Cutie Mark and everything. I love 'em all -- don't regret what I gave up to have them -- but sometimes I still dream of what might have been. So I'm just glad I can help you find your dream, Snails."
Snails felt tremendously happy, as if the world had just revealed itself to be a fundamentally-friendlier place.
The door swung open.
A muscular, well-fleshed middle-aged Earth Pony stallion strode in. His coat was a tannish sort of white, his mane an amber-gold light brown and tied back, and his eyes dark-brown and intelligent. The blotchy green overalls he wore were embroidered over his flank with a brown-handled jug with a stylized white lightning bolt crossing it. He removed his leather stalker cap and smiled at the two Unicorns.
"Wal," he said. "Seems we got company. Snips ... and this fine orange stallion would be Snails, I reckon. You've growed some since I last seed you."
It was White Lightning.
Snails (the animals) are hermaphroditic and fight with sharpened penises to determine which gets to impregnate and which must bear the burden of impregnation. No, I'm not making this up. This is of course quite unlike either Snailsquirm or his alter-ego Glittershell, save in that their sexuality is a more complex issue than it is in (most) Ponies, who are either male or female and stay that way lifelong.
Snails is transgendered: male body, female brain, and Glittershell -- the female self-concept which expresses the entity's sexuality -- is heterosexual, which is to say androphiliac. In other words, Glittershell is romantically attracted to males.
To make Glittershell's life worse, she is attracted to heterosexual males, as Glittershell wants to express herself as a filly. Also, Glittershell is morally quite conventional, and hoping for love leading to marriage. This means that Glittershell is very likely to have a very sad, lonely and frustrating love life, unless she can undergo a full sexual reassignment enchantment.
This is more complex than one might think, because of Glittershell's body-brain dichotomy. Simply reversing Snails' sex would lead to a gender-dysphoric filly with a male brain, which is not what Glittershell wants! This is advanced and experimental magic, and even Princess Twilight Sparkle would need the aid of medical professionals and a lot of study before she could perform it properly -- the consequences of a mistake could be grave for Glittershell, including hormonal imbalances and insanity. It's not even remotely safe until Snails' body has finished growing, which won't happen for another five or so years.
Rarity explains it in some detail here in Coming Out of Your Shell, which is not my blog and is the source of my assumptions about Glittershell. She's done some research because Glittershell is her friend, and one of her little sister's best friends, and she's one of the few Ponies Glittershell trusts with the secret of her sexual identity.
Glittershell is no more intelligent nor wise in the ways of the world than Snails, because Glittershell is simply female-Snails. Which is to say, Glittershell is a not too bright, very naive filly who has just turned 16. She is convinced on a very deep level that she can't get killed even if she does something supremely stupid, a belief that her best friend Snips shares. Which is why they get into trouble on a semi-regular basis -- including in this tale.
Is Carrot Top mean or even abusive to Snails, who is after all her own nephew? Perhaps sometimes -- but one should take into account just how annoying it must often be for her trying to get productive labor from him and having her gardens damaged by his not-infrequent mistakes. Snails' Talent does not lie in carrot gardening, and the main reason Carrot Top employs him is because she preferentially wants to hire her own kin.
Wow, I wonder why whiskey sales would be up after the events of Twilight's Kingdom? Go figure ... 
Poor Evie is almost certainly suffering from Adult Onset Diabetes, with those symptoms. She has only spotty medical treatment, where she lives, and Equestria is not yet up to synthesizing insulin; with her dietary habits, her prognosis is poor. 
Maybe Doctor Stable or Goldie Pie can help her? 
What they did, of course, to make sure colts kept their youthful singing voice, was castrate them. Ironically, Evie is unknowingly talking to somepony for whom the thought is less horrifying than it would be for most stallions. Not that it isn't still horrifying, especially under the low-tech conditions under which the Istallions would have performed the operation.
And the thought has been planted that will one day lead to the public career of Glittershell.
The full Lightning Family includes Whitey (43), Evie (41), their children Midge (24), Lamp (22), Stalky (19), Sneaky (19) and Ermie (13); Midge's husband Clem (29), their children Pudge (5) and Punch (3), Whitey's mother Cherry (82) and Evie's mother Mare (58) (their mother had a long childbearing career). Not a member of the immediate family, but aware of the relationship and a friend of the family, is their third cousin Summer Lightning (from All the Way Back), a Guard officer. Both Whitey and Evie were born Lightnings, because they are maternal first cousins -- Cherry and Mare were respectively the oldest and youngest sisters in their family.
And that's the Dukes. I mean, the Lightnings. 
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As always, great job in fleshing out your world and telling a great tale in the meantime
6276664
They're not precisely a Ponification of the Dukes, but I think the overall inspiration is obvious.
Aww. Good to see Snails/Glittershell getting some support for something she loves. Though I have the distinct feeling that I'm not going to be feeling nearly as good about the next chapter. Whatever Snips has planned, it's probably going to be very foolish.
Also, that snail cutie mark has several possible deeper meanings. I'm not sure which apply in this particular Equestria, but I'm sure that our hero/ine is much more capable than she thinks.
6277620
I broke the chapter somewhere different than I intended, but it works well as a cliffhanger because it lets me introduce White ("Whitey") Lightning without revealing how the meeting goes or exactly what Snips wants to do.
I see it as "perseverence" -- snails are slow but steady. Also, hidden power.
Wonder what Snip's plan is to celebrate their shared Stallionhood. I had thought it might involve prostitution, but now I'm thinking the other two possible stalliony things to do, hunt and kill something or get drunk.
I see both going very badly.
I kind of wish Snips and Snails had more characterization in canon now. Of course with a little imagination and character can become interesting.
That name, White Lightning, oh man is that ever great. He should hope that Equestria bans the booze, then he'd really be making money. I recently read a book on the history of moonshining that pointed how before Prohibition was passed, it cost $3.50 to make four gallons of hooch that sold for $8; a year after Prohibition passed, it sold for $88. And a few years later it went for several hundred dollars. That was before 'cutting' it to stretch the stuff out.
I ever send Silver John back to Equestria, I may have to have him meet the Whiteys if that was okay with you.
Great chapter and looking forward to the next one.
6280208
Why, thank you! I also connected the family with Summer Lightning, just to be cute (but also because they must have some Pegasus ancestors to produce Midge -- not sure if I mentioned it, but she's the only one of them not an Earth Pony, and Whitey and Evie are faithful to one another).
As I've mentioned, my Celestia is too smart to ever do that.
What the Lightnings are doing is tax evasion, actually. There is a liquor tax in Equestria -- not a huge one -- but it's spottily-enforced outside major towns, so they can make a decent profit by having their business officially not exist. Plus, that way they don't need to pay taxes in general past a minimum needed to avoid making it utterly obvious. That's pretty much what the Dukes from Dukes of Hazzard were doing, as well, though America has higher liquor taxes, fees, etc. etc.
They also have a fair amount of land (notice that they're a rich family by White Hollow standards) and engage in ordinary farming to some extent (though they also buy food for liquor or the money they make from directly selling such moonshine). The whole family helps in the business.
Yes, they're technically organized criminals. But about the nicest ones you'll ever encounter.
Much like the Dukes.
And yes, you can use them, and I think that John would get along okay with them.
6278597
It's not so much that they're going to get drunk.
It's where they're going to get drunk.
6280622 It's not so much that they're going to get drunk.
It's where they're going to get drunk.
And of course, where you wake up afterwards and what condition you're in.
6284149
Assuming they wake up at all, yes. Precisely.
img03.deviantart.net/fba0/i/2012/047/2/f/welcome_to_sunny_town_in_minecraft_by_firedra6on-d4pygnf.png
6285721 I'll assume that the Whiteys don't do things like 'stretch' their homebrew with rubbing alcohol like they did in Philly during Prohibition.
6286086
No, they don't want to poison their customers!
And now with names revealed, I'm wondering if Lightning Dust is at all loosely related to this family?
6827604
Maybe she is. I've already decided that Summer Lightning (from All The Way Back) is some sort of cousin of them, and Lightning Dust is also a Pegasus.
The voice singing thing is stupid relatable