A War

by Comma Typer

Morning Alarm

Yellow in the horizon, blue right up above. Birds chirped, flapping their wings above the vast stretches of grasslands, over hills and mountains of jagged and ragged edges and cliffs, covering miles and miles of ground, their landscape—the wide view before them—ever slightly changing.

As the sun dawned on Ponyville—bringing upon the little village its warmth and welcoming light—the windows glimmered on the quaint and dainty cottages of hay roofs and thatched walls. The roads of rock, sided by trimmed flat grass and bushes among other small green shrubbery, were clean and free from most trash and garbage. The smell of the town was a fragrant one—the abundance of flowers that were scattered throughout, not to mention the florist's shop over there beside some similar-looking houses, gave rise to that. The rivers flowing through Ponyville—under bridges, winding past trees and buildings—created a rushing of water that could be heard. At the middle of Ponyville resided a grand structure, a town hall of sorts, with several floors, some colorful flags flying near the top. In the distance, a rooster's faint cry could be heard, signalling to all who were not aware of it yet that the morning had come.

If that did not tell them, there was the newspaper pony.

"Extra! Extra! Special Extra! Super Special Extra! War is ahoof! War is ahoof!"

Windows were flung open, a few panes cracked.

Hooves swung the doors, revealing ponies with strange expressions on their faces—wide eyes and shivering mouths with no words.

Others looked on at the delivery pony with a close eye as he walked along and threw out newspapers, panicked in his pace.

"You're not pulling that trick on us again!" a pony from a second floor yelled, balling up his hoof at him.

Yet the pony exclaimed:

"Extra! War is ahoof!"

A scramble of hoofsteps out on to the streets.

Newspapers were picked up, unfolded with great speed—sometimes to the point of ripping them apart, arousing the anger of somepony who scolded another.

As the newspaper pony walked on, more and more windows and doors were opened, more and more ponies were exiting their houses and got to reading the newspapers laid before them, with several even re-reading the headlines, their voices revealing disbelief.

Then, gasps.

The murmurings only increased, any remaining whispers fading away—giving way—to the trembling talks.

"I told you about this!" Bon Bon, an Earth pony mare with pink and blue mane, said, looking at Lyra—a mint green unicorn. "Yet, what did you do? You didn't listen to me!"

"Well, I expected that the Princess would solve everything," Lyra replied, rolling her eyes. "She's been able to keep Equestria afloat for a long time—why fail now?"

Bon Bon groaned, slamming a hoof on her face. "Just because things have been going the way they've been going—" a flailing of forehooves "—doesn't mean they're going to stay fine!"

A hoof stomp on the ground.

"Now, what're we gonna do?" she said, raising her voice.

Lyra's lips quivered.

"Make sure this ends quickly," a voice suggested.

The two mares turned around.

Davenport, in his blue coat and white shirt, walked from the street to them—a smug smile on his face.

"I was thinking about that," Bon Bon said, giving him a piercing look.

Then, another stallion fell in front of the three—eyes on Bon Bon and then on Davenport. "What are we gonna do?!" he yelled—hoarse voice, rough tone, as if about to cry.

"Get yourself together, Crusoe!" Davenport said, pulling a fellow Earth pony up on his four hooves. "It's not the end of the world!"

"Well," he began, "it's gonna be the end of Equestria as we know—"

"Don't go crazy!" yet another voice shouted.

A figure stepped foward from a group of ponies already busy in a separate, tense conversation: Thunderlane, a black pegasus.

"Worrying isn't gonna get us anywhere!" he said, pointing a hoof at the already gathered crowds of ponies by the houses, on the streets, near the rivers—exchanging words of hesitation—apprehension, with hoof-biting and eye-darting prevalent. "All we need to do is to stay calm!"

"That's what I was gonna tell you!" Bon Bon said, only getting angrier.

"Where's the mayor in all of this?!" Lyra spoke—her voice shaky, walking closer and closer to a wall, almost stepping on the flowers. "Has she said anything?!"

"She's got the crazies as well!" Bon Bon blurted out, groaning after.

Thunderlane flapped his wings, hovering over the ground. "Uh, I don't know about you, but I'll go ahead and make sure it doesn't get rowdy. You know us pegasi!"

And he zipped out of the scene.

Davenport looked on—with a shivering unicorn, a hysterical stallion, and a calm yet irritated mare. "That leaves the four of us, then."

As the mutterings grew beyond their crowds and groups, spilling over to the rest—shrieks, screams of panic, galloping and running off to somewhere or, perhaps, anywhere—"I'm not ready for this!" a mare wailed as she joined her fellow panickers in their disorganized sprint as various ponies went about and halted some but not all the trouble-makers, trying to organize everyone in distinct groups before bickering with one another about how to organize them in the first place.

---

The mayor—a gray-haired mare wearing a pair of glasses—was alone, standing on the town hall's round off-white porch. A lectern was already there with microphone prepared.

A few pieces of paper were on it.

She sighed.

She saw the mass of ponies across the river—there weren't so many right in front of the town hall, on the open space of smooth stone ground. The noise over there, with the ponies in disarray as they made points, accused this or that, blamed this one or that one, drew up contingencies and emergency plans, promised that they would store up food in case of the worst, vowed to defend Ponyville from all threats (and attracting flattery from some and sarcastic, snarky comments from others, doubting whether that pony would defend Ponyville from all threats)—all these were just now noise that happened to be across the river, across the bridge.

A white mare walked up to her. "Mayor Mare," she began in a fancy accent, gesticulating about, "I don't suppose you would...tell everypony to restrain themselves immediately?"

"Rarity," the mayor replied—a bit incredulous, "haven't you heard the news?"

"Why, of course!" she said, uptight with a close of her eyes. "But, I don't see anything good coming out of such rabble."

She placed a hoof to her chin, looking on at the disordered crowds again.

"It must be done soon," Rarity said, prodding.

The mayor kept looking on. Then: "Rarity, bring some ponies with you—tell them to come over here now."

Rarity nodded—"Hm!"—and trotted away, on to the open area and across the bridge.

---

A slightly orange farm pony—Applejack with her brown, simple hat—stood in front of the still-folded newspaper. She stood at the large entrance of the red farm—itself huge, of three stories and partially surrounded by white picket fences. Around her were more—crops of corn to her right, straight ahead the chicken coop, to her far left enormous swaths of lands dedicated to apple trees and apple trees as far as the eye could see.

She picked up the newspaper.

She read it.

Gasped. "How am I s'posed to tell this to my family?"

Comments

[Nikolai the Gryphon]

Awesome story! Can't wait for more!

[Sir Budginton]

It's a good start, I do enjoy reading these types of stories so here's hoping it goes on for a while. I do love reading really long stories. How many words do you think it will have, when all is said and done? Or is it too soon to say.

[Comma Typer]

8592505
Should end up at over at least 100k words, if not 250k and more.

[Sir Budginton]

8592611

Over 250k. Yessssss

[EverfreePony]

Alright, so the promised minireview for the opening chapter; the introduction to the story is very dynamic, consisting mostly of dialogues that make the pace faster, but it all works well here. You start the chapter with quite lengthly and detailed description, which I personally don’t mind. Just be aware that sometimes you get a little tangled in the longer sentences, leading to some strange stuff like this:

created a rushing of water that could be heard, that still rush.

Also, try not to overuse em dashes. They kind of break up the text and sometimes a comma would be better in their place.

From the way you describe in detail the appearance of each character and the locations, it is clear you are writing this for audiences that “haven’t seen” the show. There is nothing wrong with that, only know that I’ll be keeping an eye on the consistency of such portrayal. Also, it might be a good idea to break up the mostly monotone descriptions of mane and coat colours by mentioning other defining attributes, or you can try to serve us the colour schemes in smaller doses inserted between descriptions, for example like this: “...” she said, pulling on the locks of her violet mane.

[Pun System]

Huh. So you started before our Season 5 glimpse at the Crystal War timeline. I like that approach. The way you've set up the story, you won't have to use (and risk overusing) flashbacks. Rarity and AJ are both in Ponyville, so good attention to detail there. No mention of cutie marks or the rest of the Mane Six yet, so I'm curious as to how you're going to handle that subject. What I've seen so far from your story is promising, and makes me want to keep reading, which is important for a first chapter.

However, parts of the story do seem just a bit unrefined in terms of grammatical elements. 8680911 already mentioned the dashes. Paragraph breaks can be used to emphasize a key, powerful sentence by isolating it from what comes before and after, but be careful not to overuse this technique. It's more powerful if it's used less often.

Overall, not a bad start on an ambitious project. I'm eager to find out where, when, and how this fits into the Season 5 finale.

[BradyBunch]

I like this concept right from the outset, but I'm noticing a lot of paragraph breaks and switches between past and present tense. It won't distract me from the plot--I don't think it'll distract me from the plot--but it's a thing I thought you'd need to know about.