Tales of Another Ponyville

by Paradise Oasis

The Secret of Butterfly Island

And now, another tale of the past... this time, from Butterfly Island!

"Your majesty, is something bothering you?" One of my younger filly subjects asks me, flapping around nervously at the entrance to my tent. "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"What? No Cloud Climber." I tell her reassuringly, a pained smile crossing my face. "Everything is all right, now go on, and play with the other fillies."

But everything is not alright. I'm afraid for my tribe. My name is Morning Monarch, and I am the ruler of the Pegasus ponies of Butterfly island. For as long as I can remember, this tropical paradise has been home to we flying ponies, and been our entire world. Beyond our borders is the great ocean, stretching out in every direction for miles and miles and miles around. We have always been safe here, away from all danger. But now, a new discovery has put fear into the heart of this purple stallion with a blue and white mane. A discovery that changes the very nature of everything we know... and could be the greatest danger my tribe has ever faced.

"Father, I've finished my chores for the day." A little white Pegasus tells me, trotting up behind me as I was lost in my own thoughts. "May I go and play with the other fillies?"

"Of course you can, my dear." I tell her, as she flies out of the royal hut at the top of the butterfly falls. "Just be careful down there on the beach!"

This island will be my daughter's to rule one day... just as it was my mother's to rule before me, and her father's before her. We have always watched over our tribe, all the way back to the time the princess of friendship's Pegasus daughter first led all winged ponies to this paradise. For generations we had lived here and played under tropical sun, content in our land of surf and sand, with that being the extent of our world. There was nothing out there beyond the endless blue, or at least nothing that concerned us Pegasus ponies.

But we did not count on a very curious, very adventurous mare who sought the world beyond the confines of our own island; Queen Royal Rose, my own beloved wife. She was always trying to find the hidden and secret things of this world, even back when we were foals. She convinced me to fly farther and farther out into the sea, until our muscles could carry us no further. It was that wandering spirit that first drew me to her, but I didn't see how far her adventures would take my sweet purple angel with the pink mane.

"There's something under that waterfall, Morning!" She told me excitedly, informing she was going to fly through. "I know it looks like solid rock, but I just feel there's more to it than meets the eye!"

And so, only a few months after our daughter was born, she decided to fly under the waterfall herself, and was gone for several minutes. I thought she had discovered some kind of secret cave under there, until she came back all excited and hyper.

"Morning, there's a whole other world over there!" She exclaimed, flying around over my head. "We need to put a scouting party together, and go over and explore that new place!"

But I was too afraid, worried about the concept of a new and unexplored world beyond our own. I tired to organize a luau, in order to distract Rose from this strange new place. But she would have none of it, and flew under the falls and disappeared while I was distracted.

"Royal rose?" I called out, exploring the area around the waterfall. "Royal, where are you?"

Fearing for her safety, I flew through the waterfall myself. Sure enough, I found her whole other world... a very strange place, with buildings of stone, and wingless ponies who couldn't fly. Staying out of the sight of these strange ponies, I searched high and low for my queen. But I could find no trace of Royal Rose, and had no choice but to return through the portal to Butterfly island before night fell.

I never gave up my search, however, and constantly sent the royal family's loyal swarm of trained butterflies, a gift from the Princess of Friendship's animal-loving Pegasus friend to our tribe long ago, though the portal to explore and find her. But despite all of their efforts, the swarm never managed to find any trace of my lost Queen. I had lost her forever, due to my own weak fear and hesitancy. I should have taken her desire to explore more seriously.

In the years since then, I've kept this hidden place a secret from the rest of the tribe. I need to protect my tribe from new and unexpected dangers, and who knows what evil it was out there in this new world that claimed the life of my lost and missing beloved? These ponies live in a peaceful and idyllic existence on this island, and anything out beyond it's borders could be a danger to them. Just look at the poor orphan filly, Thistle Whistle. Her family flew out into a stormy sky filled with clouds one night, and only she returned, a horrific fear of the clouds instilled in her timid little heart.

No, I cannot expose my tribe to whatever horrors may lie out beyond Butterfly Island. Looking down at the foals at play on the sandy beach below, and the adults swimming in the lagoon and guzzling ice cream floats while resting beneath the palm trees, I know I must be extra cautious in keeping the other world a secret from them, for their own good. Already one little filly, Starsong Melody, has discovered the portal. I had no choice but to exile the tearful five-year-old foal to the wingless pony village beyond the portal, to prevent the secret from getting out among the other Pegasus ponies. After extracting a Pegasus promise from her not to reveal us to the wingless ones, of course.

But telling Starsong's teary-eyed parents that she was lost to them, caused a pain that was too much for me to bear. Should the portal again be accident, I cannot go through that again. This secret cannot be kept forever, and the day will come when the Butterfly Island ponies must be made to face the world beyond, for better or for worse. I shall pass the secret on to my own daughter, so that when the day she becomes queen, she may decide if the time is right to reveal the secret. Seeing her playing with the other little fillies, I decided it was time to let her know of a responsibility that shall be hers one day.

"Starcatcher, come here." I called out to my daughter, motioning her to come over to where I stood atop the waterfall, "There is something we need to discuss..."

Comments

[HB_DS2013]

The tropical setting made me think of Las Pegasus or Vanhoover. I'm also gonna go on a limb here and assume that two of the three leaders are descended from Twilight Sparkle.

[BioniclesaurKing4t2]

Because a recent blog post asked for reviews, here goes nothing, thesaurus in hand:
The short-story-collection format of this story plays to two opposing extremes: on the one hand, its habit of constantly changing the audience-perspective character successfully builds the feel of this being a complete, fully-populated world that is more than a mere playground for a select few main characters, and that each and every character has a place and a role. This disjointed nature is exactly what the introduction promises readers, so it delivers what it sets out to do; however, on the other hand, as almost every chapter introduces a new temporary focus character, many chapters are reduced to being little more than character introductions with few events of actual consequence being included. Being little over 1000 words each, the chapters have precious little time to establish themselves, and not all are as successful as others in being fulfilling to read if one is already familiar with the character and their one or two personality quirks—some may even earn the description of "shallow". (Luckily, though, there are enough hits for mildly lenient readers to overlook the misses.) Additionally, the story's format makes it extremely difficult to establish a coherent central narrative with any great focus. Granted, the Slice of Life nature (and tag) of the story may preclude such a central story from being a requirement, and enough common threads are still touched upon to imply the presence of something underlying and keep readers waiting for later chapters in expectation of these common threads instead of just standalone variety segments.

So yeah, that happened. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work, everyone. Of the ones not building on any of those "common threads", the better chapters are typically the ones that introduce a character's personality through their participation in events or interactions with other characters, as opposed to through simple exposition or other "Hi, I'm me" formats (not to say those are bad, just that those parts shouldn't be the only thing in the chapter).