Chapter Three - Being
-Deadman's Gun, Ashtar Command
(Incidentally, if you were wondering what song I would use if I were trying to represent Marshall, this would be the one.)
Marshall was quite familiar with the dangers of panic mode. It happened to all pilots during their career at some point. Up there, things could change in an instant, whether you were a combat pilot or not. His first moment of panic; real, gut-wrenching, mind destroying terror, had happened while flying emergency relief supplies over Iraq, at approximately a thousand feet. Everything about the flight had been routine, and while it was technically unsecured territory, he'd flown this exact mission three times previously, and it was beginning to take on the trappings of the dull and mundane. Suddenly, his concentration on the upcoming landing was shattered by the blare of the missile launch warning on his annunciator panel.
An insurgent had taken an opportunity shot and launched a MANPADS (man portable air defense system) as he had come in for a landing. For a split second he had completely frozen up, aware that, at that altitude, in a C-130, there was no such thing as evasive maneuvering. In fact, at that critical stage in a landing, evasive maneuvering probably would have resulted in a crash. The instinct, however, was to put some distance between him and the missile, by any means necessary. Fortunately standard procedure had the Northrop-Grumman built Nemesis DIRCM (Directed Infrared Countermeasure) active at anything less than ten thousand feet, and the automated system had spoofed the missile before it became a problem. In this case, indecision had actually saved his ass, as in morbid fascination he watched that deadly contrail spiral wildly off on a tangental ballistic arc, curving widely in vain to find a target it could no longer "see", before running out of fuel and crashing into the wreckage specked desert.
The landing proceeded without incident, he penned a nice "thank you" email to NG Laser Systems, thanked his lucky stars for technology, and got very drunk the next time he visited a drinking establishment. Still, it stuck in his mind, that incident. The moment when his indecision had saved him. He'd wondered quite a few times since, what would have happened if some action had been NECESSARY on his part.
Panic could kill, in the right conditions, and being no stranger to it, he could recognize it in others.
Even if those others were cutesy little equines.
Fear is the mindkiller, indeed.
"Easy..." He said evenly, slowly lifting his hands up. "Easy, Twilight-"
She edged back from him, head tossing slightly, her flanks quivering, on the verge of bolting. Twilight had definitely turned inward in the wake of whatever sanity blasting revelation she'd had, muttering a stream of nonsense, something about the Princess abandoning her, the stars were wrong... and some extremely complex mathematical equations...
She was about a step away from toppling backwards over the edge where the railing was cut away so that the platform could be accessed.
He made a snap decision, one that he hoped wouldn't haunt him later. Snapping forward, he caught the first available handle, in this case the unicorn's horn, and jerked her remarkably light frame back from the drop behind her. With no traction from her hooves on the smooth boards, she slid easily toward him.
For the second time that day, Twilight Sparkle went bugfuck. Instinct told her that a predator had a hold of her head, so she attempted to twist away, rear legs cocking for a buck, dancing, practically pirouetting on that little four foot platform.
"CALM DOWN, DAMN IT!" Marshall roared, adrenaline and fear surging in him.
Acting on his own instincts, he released her horn, advanced a step and instead wrapped an arm around the unicorn's neck, coming in low and putting his shoulder into her chest. Moving like he hadn't moved since an aborted and somewhat embarassing attempt to join his High School wrestling team, he bodily lifted her off of the ground, spun on his heel, then slammed her down against the boards and used his superior bulk to cram her up against the tree in a sort of half-assed wrestling move that was only really effective because he was a grown man trying to subdue someone with the mass of a midget or half grown girl. She got one good kick in with those surprisingly strong hindlegs, and pain flared through his left leg as her hoof impacted hard with the meat of his thigh.
"AGH, FUCK!" That was going to leave a mark.
Gritting his teeth, he slid his right leg back for traction and his boot caught on the support for the guardrail. The stout board held, and he braced against it, angling his left leg away from those scrabbling hooves. He braced himself up and shoved harder, desperately attempting to restrict the unicorn's movements further. Anything to take away the space she needed to chamber those deadly, cute, blunt little hooves again.
"LET ME GO, LET ME-"
"TWILIGHT SPARKLE, CALM THE FUCK DOWN!" He roared in her face, jerking his face back from her horn as her head swiveled wildly. It wasn't really sharp, but no one wanted the equivalent of a hard finger in the eye, either.
"LE-"
"LISTEN TO ME! LISTEN! LISTEN TO MY VOICE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!! YOU CANNOT FREAK OUT UP HERE! OKAY?!"
Her wildly rolling eyes met his suddenly, still panicked, but no longer focused on the middle distance.
"Shhh.." He crooned. "Shh, calm down... easy... just... easy."
Either she was getting tired, or she actually was listening. Her breathing was ragged, she couldn't exactly take a full breath with his bulk crushing her into the corner formed by the intersection of the tree and the platform.
"Ow." She managed in a small voice.
"Are you calm?" He asked.
"I... yes. I'm sorry."
He slowly eased back from her, ready to surge forward again if her struggles renewed.
After several seconds, he finally brought his legs under him, eased backward against the rail support, then shifted his legs in front him when he was sure of the support at his back, breathing hard. He watched her carefully.
She looked back, shaking, but no longer panicked. His dogtags had been pressed pretty hard into the left side of her muzzle. So hard, in fact, that he imagined he could read his name, serial number, and "no rel pref" even through her short fur. As for her overall state, she looked both frightened and completely exhausted. She was sprawled out on her belly, watching him from her peripheral vision, breathing hard, all four legs stretched out.
He took a deep breath.
"I don't know, what the fuck that was..." he said, slowly. "But you cannot freak out in this place, Twilight. Not like that. Not ever."
She just watched him.
"Every decision you make here..." He closed his eyes, remembering things he'd really rather not remember, but pressing on despite the pain. "Everything you do has to be considered. If you had fallen off this platform, or you'd managed to knock me off of it... then chances are we'd have broken something... and that's it."
"That's..." He winced and massaged his bruised inner thigh. "That's all she wrote."
"You hurt me." She mused.
He opened his eyes and glared at her, still rubbing the charlie horse she'd given him. She actually blushed, looking a little guilty.
"I'm sorry." She looked down. "It's just-"
"You panicked, and I reacted, then you panicked at my reaction and I overreacted, to keep us both from getting hurt. It was a fuckery feedback loop. It's been a long day, and it's been one insanity after another, for both of us." He said tiredly.
She nodded, eyes still downcast.
"Are we cool?" He said finally.
She nodded. "Yes. I'm sorry."
"We're cool." He said with finality. "Nothing else needs to be said, Sparks."
She glanced back at the night sky. "It's wrong, Marshall. The sky, it's all wrong."
"I got that impression," He said dryly, paused, then admitted. "It's wrong for me too."
Her eyes darted to his and she opened her mouth.
"I didn't say anything..." He said, raising a hand to still her protest. "Because I didn't know if it was the wrong sky for you, too... and I didn't want to... worry you, on top of everything else. To be honest, I was kinda hoping you'd know where we are. That some part of this might actually make some fucking sense, for once."
He scrubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. "In hindsight, a bad call, I guess. I'm sorry."
She was silent for a time, then nodded, head drooping down to the wooden boards beneath her.
They sat like that for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. The droning of night insects and random noises in the undergrowth beyond the palisade wall, and the flickering of the meager torchlight below made for a surreal scene. Some distant jungle predator made an alien noise of triumph and Twilight shivered, ears flicking.
He stared off into the night sky, brooding silently on past failures. After a moment he realized she was speaking to him.
"... not Equestria, and it's not..." She frowned.
"Earth." He offered, helpfully.
"Earth... where IS it?"
He chuckled tiredly. "That's the million dollar question, ain't it?"
She frowned at the unfamiliar currency, but appeared to understand the sentence by its context. It was amazing how many of their idioms crossed over with one another.
He looked at the night sky again, considering the question more carefully. "I don't know, Sparks. None of the stars are in the right spots, and while I might not have nearly enough land-nav schooling to be confident of finding my way around by celestial navigation, I know enough about the constellations to find the dippers and Polaris, and none of the stars is bright enough or in the right place to be the North Star." He paused.
"Plus, the moon is wrong. It has no visible geographic features, and..."
He shrugged helplessly. "It looks... fake."
She nodded. "The constellation names you mentioned don't mean anything to me, but I agree with your reasoning. I HAVE actually spent a decent amount of time studying the night sky, and nothing is recognizable. It's like Princess Luna was in a rush to get it up and just, I don't know, threw everything up there randomly... which is something she'd never do. She's quite sensitive about the night sky."
Marshall gave her a slightly blank look. "What?"
Twilight gave him a quizzical look. "You know, Moon Princess? Responsible for the night sky? Raises the moon every night?"
"Did I hit you in the head or something? What are you talking about?"
She frowned, then comprehension dawned. "Oh! That's right, you're from this... Earth, which, if it has a different night sky, must be a different planet! So you must do things differently, there!"
He nodded. "I'll say. I've never heard of a Princess Luna. Although, the moon is sometimes referred to as Luna where I come from."
Her face took on a delighted animation that was quite charming, and definitely much better looking on her than depression or fear. She clopped her front hooves together, sitting up straight.
"So, who raises your sun and moon?" She asked eagerly, "Oh, I wish I had a notepad!"
Marshall winced. "OK... this is gonna take some... explaining."
Twilight Sparkle was about as close to an infophile as you could get, though it wouldn't have occurred to her to describe herself in such terms. Still, flush with new discovery, head spinning, heart racing, for the moment, she had completely forgotten about the horrifying events leading up to this conversation.
Bruises and all.
"So, let me see if I understand this correctly. Gosh, this would be so much easier if I had notes... All of these planets are just whizzing around your sun because it produces a massive gravity well, resulting in these elliptical orbits, and your moon does the same thing around your planet due to its OWN gravity well, and the apparent rising and setting of the sun and the moon are really just optical illusions caused by the spinning motion of your planet as it rotates the observing face away and then back to the sun?"
"Yup."
"-And, the stars... those are actually suns, with planets of their own, too?"
"Most of 'em."
"-All of them just spinning and hurtling through space, from a single point billions of years ago, when the entire universe was compressed into a tight point and then exploded outward in a Big Bang?"
"Pretty much."
She sat back, eyes shining, looking up at the sky, imagining all that movement, all those collisions, the massive hidden machinery of the celestial heavens spinning and spiraling and continuously dancing in a huge intricate pattern of...
Of... well, chaos. "That's so... so disorganized!"
He raised an eyebrow. "Well, I suppose you could look at it that way, but then again, we don't have to worry about a slow lingering demise by heat death if one of our world leaders wakes up on the wrong side of the bed."
She gave him a sour look. "She only tried that the one time, and she got better. Nopony holds it against her." She paused.
"Well, much, anyway."
He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I'll take your word for it. I still find this whole immortal princesses raising the sun and moon sorta hard to believe."
She stepped forward a bit, eyes locked on him like a hawk seeking a small mammal.
"I could show you the math!" She said eagerly. "It's actually an elegant bit of spellwork, you see-"
He raised a hand. "Hold your fire there, Sparks. So what did you guys do before the Princesses?"
She sat back. "Oh, before the Princesses were born, a group of twelve or so unicorn archmagi did the duty in synch, but it was much less efficient."
He nodded. "And before them?"
She frowned. "History doesn't really say... that was during the reign of Discord, you see... and things were a chaotic mess back then. Written history doesn't get really accurate until about eight hundred years ago, when-"
She suddenly startled herself with with an interruption in the form of a huge yawn.
"Oh, sorry..." She giggled. "Guess I'm a lot more tired than I realized. I just get so focused on new things."
He smiled, thinly. "It has been a long day, and I still have to carry you down, Sparks."
She blinked, then smirked at him.
Then vanished in a flaring flash of purple light.
The teleport was short range enough that she actually caught the tail end of his startled curse. That shaggy head with the shapeless tan range hat appeared over the edge, looking about wildly.
He oriented on her.
She waved a foreleg at him.
He scowled. "So you can teleport, too?!"
She nodded. "I am the bearer of Magic. There are very few spells I can't perform."
His eyes widened in realization. "Wait a minute, if you can teleport, why didn't you-"
She smirked at him. "Three to one. You're not very good at this, are you?"
He stared at her disbelievingly for several seconds, then shook his head and grumbled something about damn cheating teleporting purple unicorns as he trudged his way down the ladder.
She very politely refrained from laughing at him as he did so. She had been raised better than that.
It took the human a few minutes to locate the ragged remains of a parachute that he'd opened up for fabric at one point, but that combined with various other bits of fabric and materials it was thankfully too dark to identify he was able to make her up a crude pallet with pillows and a blanket. It certainly wasn't her bed at home, but it was miles ahead of sleeping in the jungle with nothing but the cold ground for comfort. Marshall stripped down to his short pants, stripping off the boots to reveal feet that, to her surprise, looked a far cry from the hand-like appendages she'd have expected to see in a large ape primate. The toes had diminished in size to the point of being nearly vestigial, serving only as a method of further balancing that odd two legged gait. Twilight Sparkle got the impression that humans didn't so much walk forward as they did unbalance themselves and continuously catch their balance as they fell on their faces.
She decided to keep these observations to herself, for the time being.
In any case, after ensuring that she was settled in for the night, Marshall extinguished the flames of the alcohol lights and banked the fire before settling with a creak and a groan into his own bed. Before very long, the squeaks and creaks of the canvas and metal frame contraption he'd jury rigged into a bed diminished into nothing as he completed the quest to make himself comfortable.
Silence and pitch darkness crowded in on her. As was common in situations like this, she found that she could not sleep, the thoughts in her head racing a mile a minute. In fact, thoughts circled mercilessly, like vultures waiting to pounce on some poor desert traveler. Initially just digesting the fantastical things she'd learned from Marshall about his homeworld, or was it home universe? She wasn't quite sure yet, then gradually, insidiously, other thoughts crowded in.
Less pleasant ones.
It started innocently enough. She thought about how much she lamented the fact that she'd had no way of taking detailed notes. This led to thinking about how much easier collating her nonexistent notes would have been if she'd had Spike around. The little dragon was almost more obsessively organized than she was. With a pang, she realized that he would have NO idea where she went. Had he woken up, and spent all of today searching for her? Were her friends panicking even now?
She thought about all of them. How frantic they would be, especially right after that mess with the Changeling Queen, Chrysalis, and her brood. Princess Celestia would be worried as well, though of course she would carry on, as she had to and would, for time immemorial. They'd have no idea where to look... would it even have occurred to them that she could have been smuggled so completely off her world?
A lump began to form in her throat. What if... what if she never found her way home? They certainly weren't going to find her if they weren't even aware she'd left the planet. How was she going to get back, anyway? Would they ever give up? Would they search for her fruitlessly their whole lives, growing more and more hopeless as the years pressed in? Would they give her up for dead? Would they give her a funeral? Mourn her, then over the long years forget her, like an old photograph, fading into obscurity?
She was completely unable to decide which eventuality was worse.
The first indication that she had that she was, in fact, weeping, was when an attempt at a deep breath turned into a full throated sob. Suddenly the floodgates broke, and she found herself crying desperately, like a forsaken child. Heaving, aching, heartbroken sobs that she tried to stifle into her pillow.
Marshall groaned. The human shifted restlessly on his creaking bed.
"I-I'm sorry." She sobbed miserably. Where had this come from? She'd thought she had it together, and now she couldn't seem to stop.
She was unaware that he'd moved at all in the darkness. Those soft human feet and years of creeping in the jungle made him eerily quiet for such a large being. One minute she was sobbing alone in the dark, the next a large shape crouched with a shotgun pop of crepitus in both knees and sat next to her pallet in the dark. She scrubbed furiously at her aching eyes and attempted to stifle her sobs.
"I'm s-sorry. I have no idea where this is coming from." She said, before a fresh bout of silent shaking overtook her. It hurt, being that miserable.
"Yes you do." He said tiredly. "It's nothing to be ashamed of, Sparks."
She started when a large calloused hand found her neck and the back of her head. She shivered as those alien digits combed their way through her slightly sweaty mane, back and forth.
She started to say something, then collapsed again under the weight of her grief. What was she grieving for?
The loss of her whole world.
He just sat there with her, petting her gently, combing his fingers through her mane, never too rough, or too fast. It really was soothing, in an odd way. Not exactly the warm nuzzling of a parents muzzle, or even the sheltering, all-encompassing curve of an immortal's alabaster feathered wing, just... nice. She wondered, even now in her loneliness and grief, if he'd ever had children. Oddly enough, she got the strangest feeling that he derived almost as much comfort from comforting her as she did receiving it.
Then he shocked her for the second time. So badly she actually stopped shaking for a moment. Listening in a sort of stunned state of silent wonder.
He began to sing. Hesitantly, shyly, his voice rough with lack of sleep and hesitation. If she were being honest, not all that well either, he was a little too quiet, a little flat and he kept pausing at the oddest moments.
"If I had words... to make a day for you. I'd give you a morning... golden and true. I would make... this day, last for all time. Give you a night... deep in moon shine."
It was such a charming little song. It didn't appear to have any other lyrics than that, just a slow repeat of the same refrain. After awhile, he stopped even making sensible words all together and just hummed it, gently soothing her in the darkness. For the first time she internalized, really, honestly understood that this wasn't an alien, unknowable, incomprehensible enigma, but just another soul. A compassionate, lonely, world weary traveler. In the darkness their differences simply faded into unimportant little details sublimated in the warmth of that understanding. Pony, human, herbivore, omnivore, it simply didn't matter.
Just two lonely, soul weary beings. One recognizing the pain and suffering of the other on the incomprehensible path that was this crazy life journey, and carrying them for a time until they could get their hooves under them again.
She wasn't aware of the exact moment when she slipped into slumber, it was so gradual.
She dreamt of home.
Sounds woke her from her slumber the next morning. Well, sounds first... the sound of distant thunder, and the pop and hiss of something sizzling in a fire, combined with atonal whistling. The next sense to hit her was smell, and her stomach made a feeble attempt at insurrection, rumbling in a sort of sabre rattling protest that she was hungry, damn it, and that smelled good.
She sat up on her haunches and searched for the source of what had awakened her. The human had his back to her, fiddling with a makeshift skillet of sorts; again, obviously hammered out from some of that metal that he appeared to have gotten from somewhere. Standing and letting the blanket fall away from her, she trotted over, mindful of staying out of his way. Whistling cheerfully to himself, he turned on his heel, spotted her, stopped whistling, then continued his breakfast making dance.
"Good morning, my little pony. How'd you sleep?" He asked, whimsically.
"Well, thank you..." She said hesitantly. That was just WEIRD coming from him. Princess Celestia was the only one she knew that used that phrase. It sent an odd pang through her, but the feeling soon passed. She supposed that meant she was coping.
"Wunderbar!" He wiggled his eyebrows at her and stepped around her to a low table he'd obviously constructed out of some of those wooden pallets and a piece of sheet metal.
Several makeshift wooden dishes, bowls, a pitcher, some cups, and surprisingly enough, some cutlery, had been set out on the table. He scraped some of the contents of the skillet onto one of the dishes, then scraped another portion onto another dish. He then set the skillet in the middle of the table, picked up the dish, and turned back to the fire.
"Have a sit down, Sparks, and tuck in. There's a local tuber that's close enough to a potato that you'd need a gourmet to tell the difference, so I fried you up some wild taters, onions, and mushrooms. One hundred percent vegetarian, just a little bit of wild pepper and sea salt for seasoning. Nothin' fancy, but I 'spect it gets the job done."
He grinned at her and did something at the fire. The smell was very odd.
"Oh, and there's some fruit already on the table." Something sizzled and he cursed, then sucked at a finger.
She frowned. "What are you doing over there?"
He turned with his bowl and sighed. "Nothin', Sparks. Just adding a little murder to my portion." He gave her an ironic, "gonna argue?" sort of look.
She sighed and said nothing.
She took her place at the table and scanned the offerings.
"Did you make all this tableware? It's... pretty good, actually." She considered them. The level of expertise was uneven, and the most rough looking pieces were also the oldest. That made sense.
"Yup. One of the things you'll learn on this island is that it's a good idea to keep yourself occupied. I definitely recommend a hobby. Mine's whittling."
She nodded absently and focused on the task at hand. Her plate had a large portion, and it smelled quite edible. Next to it was the promised plate of fruit.
As a matter of fact, it was a plate of exactly five star fruit.
In a little pyramid pattern.
Four on the bottom, one on the top.
She gave him an annoyed, flat, unimpressed look. It could best be translated as, "I see what you did there".
He chuckled at her expression and made an infuriatingly self-satisfied tick mark in the air with his fork. "Three to two. Hominid's catchin' up."
She rolled her eyes, then snatched one of the fruits up with her magic and took a large bite out of it. Her mood brightened immediately.
The two of them ate companionably. She felt... pretty good, considering. She hadn't realized just how famished she was, and filling her belly felt awfully good. The main portion of the meal had just enough spice to it that it wasn't boring, there was plenty of it, and it was filling. She surprised herself by getting a second helping.
She eyed her table mate during the meal. You really couldn't tell that what he was eating was at one point a living creature. Watching unidentifable brown and grey lumps disappear from his plate just didn't have the same impact as raw torn flesh and blood. She decided, with a slight twinge of guilt, that she could probably live with this.
He obviously enjoyed it, whatever it came from.
"What was that song?"
He started, his eyes flicked to hers, then slid away. He colored slightly. Interesting.
"Oh, nothing. It was just some whistling. Mindless, really."
She frowned. "No, not that. Last night. It was beautiful. Kind of like a lullaby."
He coughed slightly and ran a hand through his shaggy hair. "It was... kind of a special song. For my people. Really important. It's not something we talk about. Seriously."
He was embarassed? She decided to drop it, but this was intriguing. Some kind of cultural thing? She realized that she had NO idea what his culture was like. Of what a culture of bipedal omnivores with no magic would even BE like. Nopony did.
Her heartbeat quickened just a bit at the thought of all that untapped knowledge.
He quickly changed the subject. "Anyway, it's raining pretty good right now, probably gonna keep up 'til around noon or so, then peter out. When it does, I've got some chores that need doing around the camp. You don't-"
She interrupted him. "If it's all the same to you, I wouldn't mind helping out. I mean... I'm going to live here, too... I should help out. Everypony has to do their part."
He shrugged. "Alright. No skin off my back. Could use the help, to be honest." He eyed her speculatively. "Does that floaty trick of yours have limits?"
She grinned at him. "Why don't we wait until there's something heavy to be moved, then we'll see on a case by case basis."
He shrugged. "Neat. Just as long as you don't strain yourself. I'd hate to see your brains squirt out your pretty little ears or something."
She gave him a horrified look. "That's... yuck."
He grinned. "Or you know, an aneurism. Can you get brain cramps? Do little veins pulse on your forehead?"
She growled at him. Actually growled. "I'm told sometimes my eyes glow, and sparks pop from my horn. Oh, and every once in a while, if I really overdo it, random bystanders turn into potted plants, but that's ancient history, I haven't done that since I was a filly."
He paled. "Wait, what... for real?"
She nodded solemnly.
He scowled. "You are totally fucking with me. That doesn't happen, does it?"
She raised an eyebrow at him.
He narrowed his eyes back her. "I'm going to be very upset with you if I find myself randomly growing leaves."
She grinned. "Duly noted. In such an eventuality I'll try to steer it more towards frog. What are your feelings about frogs?"
After a moment of glaring at her suspiciously, he started chuckling and she joined him good naturedly.
It felt surprisingly good to laugh. Suddenly, this didn't feel quite so bad.
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I should probably wait a few hours, come back to this with fresh eyes and edit it one more time before I post it, but eh... fuck it. I hope you all enjoy it.
This was fantastic :) loved the little ending of the chapter.
Excellent chapter, can't wait to see where this story is headed
I'm loving this story. I need MOAR.
ENJOYMENT DOUBLED.
This story hit me where it hurts, and where it counts. How much so? I registered just to make this comment.
It has been a privilege to read this story. Of all the robinsonades I've read, this is the best. (Although my reference pool is rather limited, Robinson Crusoe itself and Verne's The Mysterious Island being the only two I can recall offhand.) The visceral descriptions of action and danger, realistically rendered, are, however, second to the sense of panic and loss that permeate this work. Heck, it's so well written, my own prose is improving merely by proximity!
Finally, an update!
Heh... Frog.
And what's he cultural significance of that song?
693800
Hehehehe. I'm definately not giving that one away. Marshall has good reason to be embarassed. I would suggest looking up the lyrics on the interwebs.
Naaah. I'll wait for the reveal. More fun that way.
lol love the frog joke
Nice story so far. I'm paying attention, and I'd like to see more.
Interesting bit about the 12 unicorn archmages moving the Sun and Moon... and the detail that there are 800 years or so of recorded history in Equestria. Have you read my story, or is this just a coincidence of imagination?
693840
I may have cadged a bit here and there. I hope you aren't offended. It's just that when I read A Different Viewpoint I was like... fuck, well that all makes pretty damn good sense. I actually did do some research into the prehistory of Equestria and damn if I could poke a hole in it. So since it seemed perfectly logical and well reasoned to me I was basically like, well, no use reinventing the wheel.
I differ with you on a couple of small points, but that can be hashed out at a later date.
Seriously i want to know where they are at! You better tell us thext chapter or i am going to cry.......
Yes i am that manly....
693874 Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... and since ADV is a fan work anyway, I don't mind terribly, especially since I am enjoying your story quite a bit. I'm glad some of my ideas resonated with you.
Although, if you are going to use my ideas, I wouldn't mind if you attribute them to me, even just in passing.
Very good stuff.
To think I was gonna stick this on my 'Read this story later' list...
§ Tracking §
Wow you make me jealous. I will re-write everything I have recently written based on new insight, i learned in the past few weeks.
693884
Your story actually does go into greater detail in trying to explain possible history details of Equestria than a great many others. And in the process, they make sense. Sad to admit, I have to always check myself when thinking of ideas while writing, because I sometimes base them off ideas present in your work.
693633
Great chapter as usual. Also, you did a great job of me immediately wanting more. Guess I'll just link another Gummy dancing gif...
I wonder why she left out the "get angry and burst into flames" part........
i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/004/740/thatsupicious.JPG
Great Chapter!
This story makes me want MOAAAAAAR
But seriously, this is GENIUS
gifsoup.com/download.php?id=143332&d=animatedgifs&n=nc-genius&s=o
Seriously, this is amazingly well written. Had me fully emotionally invested the whole way through.
Two minor typos that popped out at me: I assume "mercilously" was meant to be mercilessly, and that he was supposed to prop, rather than "pop" that shotgun up on his knees.
Seriously, though... this is quickly becoming one of my favorite stories on the site.
Hey... This is pretty good... Yeah, real good. Swell, even.
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Mercilessly is a typo, but dang it, I was trying to convey that when he bent down next to her his knees made that cracking noise you get when you move fast sometimes, like, a shotgun "pop" of noise from both knees.
You get it more often after the age of thirty...
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... So it is. Huh...
I honestly have no idea what to say except that I completely misread that sentence and... uhhh... my bad?
I guess I would have expected a "coming from" in that sentence ("with a shotgun pop coming from both knees"). The way it's currently phrased is perfectly fine (I doubt many other people are silly enough to make the same mistake as me)... it just threw me off because the bit of my brain that handles reading comprehension appears to have taken an unexpected leave of a abscense.
Right-o then. Do carry on and what-not. And please ignore the silly ass that's seeing typos where there aren't any.
The ass I'm referring to, of course, is me.
Just ignore me, is what I'm saying.
I don't know all the exact details of where the song came from, but I do remember where I first heard Marshall's 'lullaby.' If that's all the cultural significance there is to it, then yes, he does indeed have much to be embarrassed about. Also, seeing other users complain about not knowing it makes me feel old, ya whippersnappers.
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I freakin love dead mans gun!! Red Dead Redemption was awesome
Poor Sparks
what are you're feelings about frogs?
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Dude, you, me, and James Cromwell are totally feeling our ages. I felt sure everybody was gonna get that joke... I'm not sure if that makes it worse or better...
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You're probably right, but I don't see a conflict here. Let's call it, Twilight Sparkle subconsciously (or perhaps even consciously) emulating her beloved mentor in front of the CMC, but finding it weird when an alien who has never met the Princess or any other pony than her says the exact same phrase.
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Ok, for you youngin's who are feeling left out and don't mind having the (admittedly kinda lame) surprise spoiled for you, follow the bouncing link.
Spoiler for Old People Joke
Loved it!
But... I can't help but feel that I missed something, what with me not exactly understanding the whole starfruit joke.
Oh, well...
Also, you have given me a new quote to use. When the need arises, I could always tell somepony that they panicked, I reacted, they panicked at my reaction, and I overreacted to keep both of us from getting hurt. A fuckery feedback loop...
Ah, now that Twilight's over her little panic attack, it looks like she's going to start becoming acclimated to everyday life there. Or, at least to an extent. Until you pull a plot twist on us, and introduce some totally different conflict.
I knew I recognized that song from somewhere too. When I clicked the link I went "AHA." Guys, I'm only fifteen and I recognized it. Come on now...
696787 The joke was that the fruit was arranged like the pile from the snare trap.
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I'll be damned... I've had that WRONG all this time... what the hell is wrong with me?!
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Don't worry about it, bro. The entire point of writing is to convey ideas to a reader. If an obviously intelligent reader doesn't have a clear idea of what's going on, it's a sign I need to take a deeper look at the structure of the sentence to figure out a clearer way to convey it.
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Huh... there's an actual medical term for the phenomenon... it's called crepitus. Learn somethin' new everyday. Of course now that I have a new word I got's ta use it....
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Crepitus... sounds like some sort of horrific degenerative disease. I can easily see one using the word to get pity points from people at convenient times.
"Excuse me, sir, but you don't appear to be on the list."
"But... this was supposed to be my last, big fling! You know... before the crepitus finally takes hold..."
"Oh, dear me, you poor soul! Let me see if I can find you an open table. One moment."
Crepitus. I think I very well may have to use it, too.
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Naw, it's that little known Warhammer 40k character, White Scars Apothecary Marine, Brother Crepitus.
Nobody appreciates that mofo.
I think what I find most interesting about this story at the moment, is seeing how much Twilight will adjust to this harsh life after a while. I'm sure the term murder will lose it's shock value on her after a while. On a side note, I still think "murder turkey" is one of the more hilarious terms I've seen in a fanfiction lately. What else will she become desensitized to in the long run? Looking forward to seeing what you have in mind for that question as the story plays out.
I...LOVE...THIS....FIC....SO....MUCH!!!!
I guess the plane wouldn't have any sports equipment in it so the likelihood of Twi inquiring about an orange ball with a bloody hand print on it named Spalding would be very low then. I'm loving the troll contest those two are having. I wonder who's going to be first to ten.
Welp. I'm thoroughly engrossed in this little fic. You wrote Twi's reaction to the entire thing incredibly well, and I think that's really what is so captivating. Not to say that nothing else is very entertaining, but that stood out as the most well done part. I think the most entertaining part is their banter. To me, anyway.
Or something.
I love it!
Please, sir, could I have some more?
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I hope you're not mad...
btw, if you don't mind me being sarcastic, could you pick up the pace with regards to the next chapter?
Now, all I need to do is begin my near-futile attempts at finding a better fanfic...
404 error, anypony?
I think that makes it 4-2 for Twilight.
"Some distant jungle predator made an alien noise of triumph and Twilight shivered, ears flicking."
Oh the camio possabilities for that strange dark jungle.
smhttp.14409.nexcesscdn.net/806D5E/wordpress-live/images/predator.jpg
74557zipmeme.com/uploads/generated/g1332118713377210683.jpg 5 That would be epic!