2 After Storm Moon [Conrad]
2 After Storm Moon
It had taken me the better part of a moon to catch up on my schoolwork. My teachers had given me some leeway, since I'd been on Earth, but it was frustrating to be behind like that, and so I'd worked extra hard so that I wouldn't fall even further behind.
And I had lots of curious ponies who were asking me all sorts of questions about Earth, so it was never boring at lunchtime and between classes. They had some questions about Julia that they’d been too embarrassed to ask her, and even though it was kind of rude to gossip, it wasn’t really gossipping when I didn’t actually know her, I thought.
Plus there was a lot that I had to catch up on, too. A lot of things happen in a year!
The only sour part was that there were a couple of stuck-up unicorns who didn't think I'd deserved to go, which was maybe because their applications had gotten rejected.
Sometimes I did wonder if being a pegasus had given me an unfair advantage, 'cause Miss Chestnut had said that there weren't many who went. But hopefully that would change, now that I'd showed that I could get a pilot's license and fly around and follow the rules, and even help out people with stormwatching and trying to fight tornadoes.
And when I wasn't working on my schoolwork or flying and practicing with clouds—far enough away from everypony else that they wouldn't laugh at me and how clumsy I was with them at first—I was working on my guide for pegasuses so that they could go to Earth and get their own pilot's licenses like I had.
Miss Chestnut helped me with that when she could, because I wasn't so good at writing a book.
I’d gone back to Chonamare for the first weekend, just like I’d planned, and it was really good to be home. The whole weekend was a long welcome-back party, and it felt so good to sleep in a cloudhouse and to smell the sea and visit the market and the tavern. And I gave mom and dad and my sister their camelbacks. At first they were a little bit confused by them and why they’d want to wear them and if they’d chafe their wings or back and I had to show them how to make the straps work right. Mom was still a little doubtful, ‘cause she was sometimes pretty traditional, but I knew once she’d gotten a chance to use it some, she’d really like it.
The second evening that I was back, me and my sister just sat on the edge of a cloud and looked down at Chonamare below us, at the little stone houses with their thatched roofs and the winding paths that twisted between them and we didn’t talk, we just watched as the sun went down behind us and the lamps in the village got lit, one-by-one, and we finally flew back home by the light of the moon and stars.
I'd been readjusting to life back in Equestria, and while Earth was still on my mind a lot, I was getting used to not being there anymore, and the fresh pain of leaving my friends behind had kind of faded to a dull ache.
Meghan had sent me a letter saying how much she missed me and that made me cry, but there was good news ‘cause she said that she had had an interview already and it had gone really well and next time she’d get to talk to a pony and she was looking forward to that, and she said that Aric missed me too but he wasn’t so good at writing so she had to do it for him.
And I'd sent letters to Aquamarine and Gusty and Cayenne, and it was funny how we could talk about things that other ponies didn't really understand at all, 'cause they'd never lived on another world.
I'd written to Mister Salvatore and Miss Cherilyn, too, and our letters must have crossed paths in the mail, 'cause it wasn't a reply to the letter I'd sent them, but just the same they told me that Wisteria was doing really well at Kalamazoo College and that they'd found out that she'd gotten the letter I'd written for her. They'd moved from Kalamazoo to Ohio to help Sparklesnap and while it didn't seem quite right for them to not be in Kalamazoo, maybe humans were nomadic.
So I hadn't been expecting to get another letter from Mister Salvatore so quickly after the first, and I was thinking that maybe he'd found out if I could get camelbacks imported into Equestria, so I was eager to to open the letter, and then when I read it it was like a buck in the ribs, 'cause he told me that Conrad had died.
He'd included a really nice obituary but I could barely read it through the tears in my eyes, and I put on my saddlebags and I was still thinking clearly enough to leave a note for Denim telling her what had happened, and then I got my journal and I grabbed the first book of poetry I saw and put it in my saddlebags, too, and the letter as well, and I flew off to the coast.
I knew right where I needed to go, and the whole flight kind of passed in a blur but once I got close to Chonamare, I knew all the landmarks, and I swooped down along the beach, towards the little cluster of rocks that had always been my thinking spot, and I sat on the sun-warmed rock and for a while I just listened to the waves booming against the coastline.
The wind gusted little spits of sand into my rock-nest, and I thought about the twisted trees that lived by the shore and got shaped by the winds and the storms and each one left its mark on the tree and it grew a little stronger after each one and put its roots down a little bit deeper and still proudly held its leaves to the sky, and the sea tried to forget but the trees always remembered.
I thought about his smile and the little twinkle in his eye, and how every day and everything seemed to be so full of wonder for him, and I remembered how much he'd loved my poems, even though they weren't as good as any of the poets who he'd taught us. And I thought about how he'd told me that I had an innate love for the sky, back when I'd thought that we'd traded a part of ourselves away when we moved the first cloud.
And I knew he wouldn’t want me to be sad, but I couldn’t help that my cheeks were wet as I read his obituary again, and then I put it aside and got out the book of poetry which was Walt Whitman and that was good; that was the first poet I’d learned about. So I read Leaves of Grass and When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d, and then Song of Myself.
It was getting dark enough that it was hard to read anymore, so I put the book back in my saddlebags and went out of my little tumble of rocks and flew up to the top and perched there and let the wind blow through my coat and ruffle my feathers and watched the distant sails bob and the waves crash upon a shore that Conrad would never see.
But I would see it for him.
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A sad ending. But a good story all the way. Good job!
I need some time to collect myself before I can comment properly. In the meantime, what lingers in my mind is a line from In the Mouth of Madness : "I cannot go back. I have read to the end."
Gona miss reading this. Great story and grats on 1M words.
Thank you. A most enjoyable million words, and year.
Honestly i never read this,but i will give you a like for your dedication to this story. Well done
RIP Mister Conrad.
Congratulations on finishing, and if you missed a day over the whole fucking year I don't remember it. And that's while holding down a full time job, participating in a play, and volunteering.
You're going to laugh at NaNoWriMo now, aren't you?
I don't want to see a new story for at least a few weeks. Seriously, take some time.
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I published one yesterday.
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I was tracking that, and I said what I did in full knowledge.
It may not have been the ending I was expecting, but it's and ending certainly. I can't say much again, saying goodbye to Silver Glow feels like saying goodbye to a good friend. It's sad, but I'll hold her in my memory and my heart as one of the best things this fandom gave me.
Thanks Admiral for this little piece of warm and love.
Conrad knew too much. The changelings got him.
They're infiltrating Earth. They know that humans are ignorant of them, but fear being discovered by pony visitors; so if a pony is treated impolitely in a store or restaurant, you know who the changeling is!
It has been one heck of a year. I've looked forward to reading a chapter every day right before bed, and this is one of my all-time favorite epistolaries. Thanks!
I know it wasn't your intention, but Silver's right, this was a kick in the ribs.
From what I gathered from the comments on this story, it seems that a lot of that's described about Kalamazoo College is accurate to reality. This made me really sad when I read of Conrad's passing, because I knew, relatively certain, that it had really happened. (And it did. His obituary is not difficult to find)
Admiral Biscuit, he must have meant a lot to you if you were willing to devote the final chapter of such a large project to him, in spite of the heavy feelings it would give your readers. I do not say this to berate you, just to show that I noticed that your gift to his memory is significant. I wish to extend my condolences. May he rest in peace.
Sequel?
Masterful. I'll miss seeing this in on my feed every day. 2017 really is the darkest timeline.
But much appreciated, and a really impressive feat.
You deserve your rest, and I'm looking forward to eventual updates to Pony Planet, but if some other overambitious soul wanted to do Meghan's Journal and you let them, I'd read it. Just in case there was some doubt.
Oh, oh, that's...I should have seen that coming.
If everything you've written about him is even 10% true, then he'd love this tribute, I am sure.
Christ he was real. I had no idea. Christ he's dead. Christ, christ, I didn't expect that and I'm awreck.
And I sit here.
Waiting.
But, there are no more words.
I go to bed.
And turn out the light.
Oh man the feels! You have written a good story thanks for the journey!
Also I wonder what the ponies were too embrassed to talk to Julia about?
Fair winds and strong sails. RIP Conrad and be strong, Silver. You will be missed (unless there are some short stories with her -- hey, one can hope!)
I knew this was coming, but it still hurt.
That's sort of appropriate, isn't it?
Okay, finding out Conrad was dead was a punch in the gut. That was unexpected and sad. The world will go on, it always does, but that doesn't mean he will be forgotten. He clearly touched a great deal of people and ponies (and in real life) and I suspect your inclusion of him in the story introduced many of us to things we never had read before. So oddly enough through your story he educated us as well. That seems like a very fitting tribute.
On a happier note, looks like Meghan is making good progress in getting her visa to come to Equestria.
And finally, thank you for writing such an crazy detailed story that just covered so much and so many places. It was wonderful and amazing!
...
Finis.
That's such a beautiful tribute.
O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seem'ed there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!--
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
This was unexpected, and it was moving. I will have to see the video once I'm back home.
Meanwhile, congratulations for having finished this story. It is massive, and I can only applaud your dedication and admire the craft of such a sprawling and good, well, book.
Aside from being a splendid pony story it was, at least for me, also a trip to discover a bit of the United States. I've yet to visit your continent, but this year of following Silver Glow felt like I came to know the land as well. At least a little bit.
Thank you, Admiral.
The crashing of waves
The tree grows, sun and wind dance
Such sweet harmony
Thank you.
I've read a pretty fair # of fics & some writers have tried posting every day, but NOBODY can keep it up for too long (Appledashery, for instance). I've followed this story since the beginning & AFAIK you posted 1000+ words every day for over a year & not missed once. That has GOT to be some kind of site record & good stuff, too! Congratulations!
Yay!
I expect you'll take awhile to catch up on the comments & then take a break. In my book, you will have earned it.
I'm both sad that the story is over but also happy that it came full circle. Thanks Admiral.
On to the pony planet?
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So... Walgreens Guy and Denny's Staff are changelings?
Congratulations and thanks for writing this story, a chapter almost every day for a year is an amazing achievement.
Do you have any particular plans going forwards? Certainly no one would begrudge you if you needed a rest but do you have any other stories in mind either relating to Silver or her supporting cast or in any of your other settings?
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Not to knock what Admiral Biscuit has done, but I'm pretty sure that particular award goes to Imploding Colon. Daily updates for ~3 years or so (schedule slipped in the last story and now on hiatus), and while many were under a thousand words many were not. And that's on top of the small matter of also being SS&E.
Meanwhile, on Earth....
......One of the first things one learns when travelling to an entirely different multiverse, is that no matter how different that multiverse is there are always some things that stay the same.
And for Blue Wolf, it was quickly becoming apparent that one of them was that coffee gave him a headache.
From his quiet corner in the airport coffee shop, Blue Wolf had watched as the distictive pegasus named Silver Glow had disembarked from her plane and followed the two humans with her towards the terminal exit, on her way towards the distant building from where he'd picked up the telltale signature of a quantum rift.
Not that he'd actually needed to watch her of course. He had, after a fashion, been watching for most of the time Silver had been in this multiverse in fact. A universe was just a tiny part of a bigger whole, like a single layer of an onion. Within it and around it were more layers - each a universe in itself, from it's birth until it's death. And with each passing millisecond each one of those layers would split into more universes, with one tiny detail different in each.
That had been a well understood theory for some time, but what had surprised people the most was not the discovery that there was alot more than just one "onion" in the cosmic bag. Nor was it the fact that the energy released during the splitting of the universes produced resonations which caused quantum ripples in the fabric of adjacent multiverses. It had instead been the startling discovery that sentient beings could naturally pick up these echoes subconsciously and interpret them, influencing dreams, stories, even ideas. Despite everything he'd seen and experienced on his travels it was still sometimes a slightly spooky thought that someone, somewhere, in another far off multiverse someone could be sitting at a desk writing down exactly what he was doing at that moment in a story.
But it was a phenomenon that he himself was now making good use of. A year or so on since the incident which had triggered an attempted invasion of his own multiverse, he and many others from his world were now reading these stories. Not as simply fiction - but as windows into multiverses which they could - and frequently did -, actually travel to. Multiverses in which they themselves had made friends in.
And that was partly why Blue Wolf was now sitting in a coffee shop in a distant multiverse. It just wasn't in his nature to simply ignore when a good pony was separated from her friends. He couldn't bring two universes together, but he could build a bridge between them.
As soon as the little group disappeared from sight, Blue Wolf stood up and made his way to a discreet corner, out of sight. A few seconds of concentration was all it took for the molecules that made up his body to rearrange themselves back into his true shape, rather than the non-descript human disguise the other patrons of the cafe had lately been seeing. After another quick check that the coast was clear, Blue Wolf lifted a smarphone like device attached to his wrist and whispered a command into it.
Far above the earth and invisible to all on the planet surface, a spacecraft answered.
------------------------------------------------
Much later, out in space far from the planet Silver Glow had called home for the past year, Blue Wolf watched as his ship moved closer to it's rendevous. While most ships in the Blue Wolf fleet were designed to fight and protect those that were defenseless, the other ship they were approaching was built with a far different purpose in mind.
It was vast, miles in length and towering over his own vessel like a blue and white wall in the middle of nowhere, a huge doorway in it's side leading into a massive docking bay large enough to swallow an armada of ships. But this was no military warship. This was a ship built to bridge the multiverses.
"Communications, transmit that quantum reasonance frequency direct to the Triple - B's main control. I want them ready for a quantum jump to Silver Glow's universe as soon as we are docked."
"Aye sir"
Blue Wolf glanced at the name and inscription painted in white lettering on the side as his ship nosed it's way through the doorway. It was a simple message, one which - perhaps - would mean that the universes of Silver Glow and her friends would soon be much closer than either of them thought possible. That Silver and her friends were no more than one memorable ride away...
UNS BRAMBLE BUSH BAY
QUANTUM TURBINE FERRY
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I had mercifully forgotten that. Tried to read it, once. Got I disremember how many chapters in with Dash flying East without ever finding another character, a plot, or even expressing a motive or a goal & said "To HELL with this" It is the Pony answer to the Gormenghast Trilogy. (Sort of LOTR with all the good parts left out & IMO flat out sucks. Got 2&1/2 volumes in (because I couldn't believe anything so hyped could be so lame) & had to quit)
I'm not usually one to leave comments, but for this story I feel I need to try. I have spent way, way too much time reading stories on this site over the past several years when I should have been sleeping, and this story has been a unique journey. I just decided it needs to be moved from my favorites list to my hall of fame / best of the best list. As others have said, I'm really going to miss getting a new episode of Silver's adventures each day. Thank you for sharing this with us, and I hope we can look forward to an eventual sequel.
Silver Glow you will be missed.
I am hoping that we hear about you as you go threw life from time to time and as you raze a family of your own and teach them about earth.
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OMG DUNE
I love that movie at one time I hade a signed directors copy but I also hade a X that loved to throw my stuff out so I threw her out.
I do not miss her but I do miss that movie.
A poetic and beautiful ending to a beautiful story.
My life is changed and my mind is different due to her adventure.
Thank you for this...
So much.
I think Silver Glow said it best:
Acta est fabula, plaudite!
And you did it; you loop the loop; you finished that huge one year and a million words aventure.
I am glad you included that bit with Conrad's death, with how much influence he had on this story, an homage felt like a necessity.
I am glad I had the chance to follow it from the very first day and could see it slowly evolve into something bigger, a truely alive thing. I'm glad I could read it every morning accompagning me in my daily life. I think you just wrote what can be considered a true slice of life fiction!
I even picked up a few bad things from Silver Glow: that bad habbit of reading poetry (I even wrote some recently, I might do it on a more regular basis), that other bad habit of watchin numberphile, looking at the sky in a very different way (especially yesterday when I was on a airplane, the few from above is so often discussed in that fic!), looking for the (sadly lacking) flying option on that GPS watch I was given for christmas, and so much more. Your works often do that
At the same time, that strength was also the weakness of the story. As I realised when I tried to catch up on a few weeks of unread chapters, the repetitivity of the chapters was far more enjoyable as a part of a daily routine then as a one shot reading. It migth lack appeal for a lot of people.
Still, above all, the greatest part of all this was you. One chapter a day for a year and so (not counting that one time you had to take a break) with some additional new fic here and there and even one chapter of the Pony Planet: It is beyond impressive!
Sincerly, thank you for all that, you created something very special and I am glad I could witness it.
That fic went beyond what we expected of it and I think we all grew up from it.
What a wild ride. Thanks for sharing such a great experience with us, Admiral. I'm sincerely going to miss having this story to look forward to every day.
I even knew that Silver getting news of Conrad's death was coming, but it still made me cry.
So here we are, the end.
This story has worked its way into my daily schedule, usually being the last thing I do while laying in bed. I used to see it pop up into the featured box every day, and eventually I took the dive. 3 days later I had caught up and began to crave seeing the iconic bell tower on the front page, knowing that it signalled another instalment of my favourite pegasus. To consistently update for such a long period of time is no mean feat, I can't imagine how you managed. This story will remain as one of my all time favourites, without a doubt. Only a few stories have ever made me want to cry, and this story managed to bring a tear to my eye not once, but twice.
I still cling to the hope that this isn't the end, that there will be more, I fear going to bed tomorrow will be lonely.
As for this final chapter, it is truly a terrible shame. I think it's almost poetic in itself that a character that was so lovingly developed passed away, although late enough for the story to run its course. Normally an author has control of their characters, but no-one could have foreseen this. I'm not really sure sure how to put it into words, but it adds a real clarity to the story, a sense of reality.
I wonder what he would have thought had he known that he touched so many people from around the world, all without ever having laid eyes on him. A man I never met, yet I feel I knew.
If I may humbly offer a poem...
I have no talent for song
nor talent for art
yet through tears I'll attempt to write
something short, hopefully worthy
knowing it will never compare.
A Feather
I found an azure feather on my window
Shivering with excitement against the glass
It comes from a faraway land
With hope and curiosity in tow
“There’s more to follow” it pronounced
Among the rays of the dawning sun
I found a cerulean feather on my window
Trembling with eagerness awaiting to share
Tales Of Battles and Journeys
And new friends to hold dear
“So much to say” it exclaimed
In the warmth of the midday sun
I found a cyan feather on my window
It quivers in joy as it describes
New knowledge of arts and sciences
And Lovers gained
“Until tomorrow” it enthused
Awash in the radiance of the setting sun
I found a blue feather on my window
Restless as it conveys
It learned of culture and custom different yet the same
Enlightened with new perspectives of itself and its kind
“My visit is done now” it wistfully stated
Embraced in the moonlight’s Silver Glow.
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Emperor Caesar, maybe?
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It was Pope Gregory, hence why it is called a Gregorian Calendar. The main reason he did it was becuase the solstice happened a few weeks earlier the the then current calendar had it on. We have only had to do minor tweaks to the current calendar regarding leap years since then.
I wonder if he ever realised how far his golden boats would sail, and what strange harbours they would visit?