Day XX
Tirek closed his eyes and shook his head, panting. There was very little room in which to breathe. Albeit slowly, smoke still curled up from below, above which it was an effort to stay. Sunset’s pace had also slowed, which wasn’t helping.
‘Get a move on!’ hissed Trixie.
‘Give me a moment!’ snarled Sunset.
A moment later, Sunset resumed the climb. They’d been on the ascent for hours. Tirek’s back, neck, legs and arms ached horribly. Nonetheless, he pressed himself against the shaft’s dirty, narrow walls, slid higher and bumped into Trixie’s backside.
‘Hey!’ squeaked Trixie.
‘Well, it isn’t my fault! What are you stopping for?’
‘Quiet!’ snapped Sunset.
There was a pause.
‘We’ve reached the top,’ she breathed.
‘We have?’ Trixie’s voice quivered eagerly.
‘Listen.’
There was a dull, metallic clang. Tirek’s heart skipped a beat. Sunset stopped tapping against the grate.
‘It’s bolted shut.’
‘Get back into position! Bring out the new weapons!’ snarled Celestia, blasting a rebel with her horn. He flew backwards in the air and landed dead-centre on a pike. It went straight through. The rebel tried to speak but couldn’t, blood trickling from his mouth like drool. A sad end, to be sure. But Celestia couldn’t afford to pay respects, for three more took his place, brandishing rakes and hoes and screaming abuse.
‘Gah!’ she cried as the hoe connected with her flank. Her horn flashed and the rebels crumpled, unconscious.
‘Sister, look out!’
The warning came just in time. Celestia rolled under the blow and knocked the rebel off balance with a well-aimed kick. Luna’s horn crackled and he collapsed, clutching his chest.
The valley was overrun, but not for much longer. Celestia signalled to Fyrien on the hilltop, who nodded. The new weapons were being trundled out.
It was only a matter of time.
‘Come on! Come on! Break it!’
Sunset roared and bucked with all her might. The grate came loose and daylight spilled into the shaft.
‘Yes!’ breathed Tirek, hardly daring to believe it. ‘Yes! Yes!’
They clambered out, each of them gulping deep breaths of fresh, clean air.
‘We made it!’ said Trixie, and she laughed. ‘We actually made it!’
They were in a large meadow, complete with bridge and stream and colourful little flowers flickering in the breeze. Tirek had never seen its like before, but fell in love with it at once. After years underground, he supposed, anything above was worth falling in love with. Perhaps the other two were thinking along the same lines, for they too gazed at the sight in silence, a thoughtful crease to their faces.
And then Tirek frowned. A smell was in the air – very light, very faint, but familiar.
‘I’m going to take a closer look,’ he announced, wandering down towards the brook.
And sure enough, it was confirmed. What he’d thought to be water was, in fact, tonic. Granny Fanny’s Cold-Fire Brewed Filly-Delphian Tonic Water. A stream of it, in the middle of nowhere.
‘Well,’ he muttered to himself. ‘That’s . . . odd.’
Luna parried a clumsy blow with her horn and then, shouting, brought her hoof down on the offending rebel’s head. His eyes followed its progress and shut sharply upon impact. He keeled over, shovel and all, into the mud.
Celestia was backed up against a wall of her own soldiers, her horn flashing on and off as rebels fell to the ground in droves. Yet still they came, and Celestia was struggling to stem the flow. Luna’s insides squirmed.
‘Protect Her Highness!’ she screamed, and a row of levies moved in, roaring.
‘Gah!’ squealed Celestia as a pike raked her front. Blood flowed as she fell. Luna fought her way towards her, a horrible sinking feeling in her gut.
‘I’ve got you!’ said Luna, clambering over a lifeless body and down to where her sister lay. ‘I’ve got you!’
‘Luna . . .’ Celestia glanced down, then back, her face full of fear.
Tirek didn’t know what compelled him, only that something had. He plunged into the tonic river and drank deep, its familiar kick scratching the insides of his throat. He blinked, wondering why the water looked so strange. Then he remembered it wasn’t water. Then he forgot. He shook his head, then realised he’d slipped under. A few bubbles of air escaped his mouth. His eyes rolled.
He floated downstream.
And emerged suddenly on – a battlefield. On which both Luna and Celestia were strewn.
‘Tirek,’ said Luna, her face covered in tears. ‘Help me.’
On account of her line of work (and the occasional hospital visit), Celestia had seen a wound or two in her time and knew at once this case was hopeless. The pike had pierced her deep, and no matter what was done, magical, medical or otherwise, she was as good as dead. She felt a laugh die in her throat. The irony was overwhelming – in fact, it was all she could think about, what with Tirek’s sudden appearance from nowhere. She’d tried so hard to live – and yet here she was, dying. And he, whom she had in effect condemned to death, was alive.
‘Truly,’ she coughed, chest shuddering, ‘life’s biggest irony is it always ends in death. There you are. So far as final words go –’ She coughed again. ‘A fitting end, wouldn’t you say?’
Luna was crying.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’
‘It is done already.’
Her eyes sought Tirek’s.
‘Well, Tirek, it’s been fun. Things haven’t gone quite as planned, but – well, when did they? Still, I’ve enjoyed our time together. Remember that, won’t you?’
He nodded, face pale. She closed her eyes and sighed.
‘All in all,’ said Cadence, hiccoughing, ‘one of our stranger days. But I guess it turned out all right, no?’
Tirek grinned. Celestia grinned, a bandage round her chest. Luna grinned, snatched up a bottle of Granny Fanny’s tonic and served. All four raised their tankards, toasted and drank.
‘Mmm,’ said Celestia, wiping her mouth. ‘Fantastic.’
‘Even more so, considering its properties saved your life,’ said Tirek, chuckling. ‘I guess the black-market-magic inside isn’t so black now!’
‘Indeed not.’
There was a pause.
‘Of course,’ said Celestia eventually, ‘you cannot be allowed to roam free, Tirek. You will return to your cell in Tartarus – and no more tonic. You win, Luna.’
But Luna smiled and said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Heh.’
Tirek sighed.
‘Cheer up,’ said Cadence. ‘You can help me flog the prisoners before returning! Right, Tia? Come on, it’ll be fun!’
‘No, no,’ said Celestia. ‘I’m afraid it’s straight back to clink, as they say.’
Luna frowned. ‘This is weird again. It doesn’t feel – right. All that . . . for this? Sitting here, drinking tonic? All those days just to wind up here, outside the castle, on the wall, drinking?’
Celestia chuckled.
‘True. All for nothing,’ she said. ‘And yet to me it feels like something. And isn’t that just the greatest ending?’
‘No,’ said the others in unison, and Celestia laughed with them.
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- A Random Guy · 2.7k words · 20 0 · 1.1k views
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I've never read a story more opposed to letting the reader in on what's going on, and yet you strung me along with fascination for the whole thing.
And what the hell is a DAG? D:<
9295773
I'm flattered you actually read this thing, my man. Didn't expect that, not going to lie.
9296410
Hard to ignore a story with a description like this one. :)
9296588
Well, thanks for the read and review, bud. Real shot in the arm.
The thing this fic needed was a whole lot more time to flesh out its ending. A lot happens in the span of 2 or 3 chapters, compared to the ten or so just made up of everyday slice-of-prison-life stuff.
Generally, this weakened the ending and everything it could've been. You clearly have a knack for writing, but it takes diligence to slog through actual character building not to mention proper pacing.
The group of Trixie, Sunset, and Tirej were built up as a team, but then after they escaped that whole dynamic is thrown aside for the sake of rushing to the end as quickly as possible.
Was this a NaPoWriMo novel? That would explain a lot.
9303977
It wasn't a NaPoWriMo story but certainly written in a similar vein – daily updates for nineteen days. The story itself has more to do with creating a camaraderie between 'out-of-characters' than developing characters, but it's still a story... with characters, so... why shouldn't they be better developed? I see that. I do. This story, funnily enough, was going further and into some more serious development. BUT!
What I produced, although I felt that it worked and was nice on-paper... it defeated the purpose of the entire exercise.
This was all about tone and how a reader reacts when faced with that of the story. What I had written and planned for the future certainly
killed/draggedchanged the tone, albeit developmentally desirable. I realised the story had fulfilled its function. Extending it beyond its already relatively sizeable self would serve, I thought, to labour the point and the gimmick. And for that reason, I wrapped it up as initially planned and where. 20 chapters, 20 days. (And perhaps an upcoming illuminating sequel...)Now, after writing all that, I realise it's only vaguely connected to your point. Do you know, I agree with you – the end comes a little too quickly when compared to the slowness of previous plot developments. My above reasoning had something to with that, I think. A chapter or two more – not to develop things as I mentioned above but simply to consolidate what has been created. Very good advice. (I wonder if it's not too late to have a bash?) Thank you for your comment, man!
9304152
So, you said that what you had planned for the future changed the tone somehow, away from what your original agenda for the story and its tone was going to be.
What was the original tone you were going for, and what were the elements of the story that shifted the tone away from that?
Are you talking about the war and all the political stuff that went down in the last few chapters?
Also, generally regarding writing: I've found in the stuff I've read that when comparing to my own attempts at writing, the speed at which you write is a whole lot slower than the rate at which the reader reads. So when trying to bring a story towards a certain event, i.e. the end, it's always best to take your time. What seems like unnecessary detail and fluff to you might provide the pacing needed to give an event the time it needs to properly be built up and be written well.
9305202
Well, as I said below, this sense of camaraderie shared between characters rather than their justification and justification of circumstances. Relying on heavy dialogue to create this atmosphere of the reader almost tagging along as the oddness unfolds. Functionally, the work as it is must feed the reader just enough to whet his appetite and have him read on, and in that, I think, I succeeded. I find it hard to describe any work's tone, if that is indeed the preferable word. When I use it, I refer to the overall 'feel' of the piece – what you come away with emotionally(?). That which is created and impacted by everything? I'm not sure. I did, in case you ask, intend to shift the (sub)tone(s)(?) here and there, the black-market-magic plot and ending, for example, being two points at which everything becomes more grave.
The direction was more serious plotlines, certainly those regarding war and conflict. The intention was to return, eventually, to the old ways, the slice-of-prison-life formula, as you said, after a journey – and then keep going a little longer if it seemed appropriate. But what I had sounded far too serious, which I believe would have warped negatively the story's overall mood. Think of it, perhaps, as introducing a new taste that doesn't combine well with what you have in your mouth already.
But this is good, solid advice, this. Thank you for it. I'm just starting out at a higher level and have much to learn. And you're bang on with those speeds there. I'll certainly keep that in mind as I tackle Frontman.
... What the hell even was this story?
9340791
Hehe, that's the reaction we want to see.
I am not quite sure what to make of this story. It feels rather disjointed and in medias res like it is a sequel to an established universe series or the middle few chapters from a larger story. There are a few plot threads that are introduced, but they are left 'as-is' and never really get developed. There is an intriguing undercurrent of a black comedy where Celestia, Luna, and Tirek play games and make wagers with the lives of mortals simply because they are bored immortals looking for a friendly evening game of cards, but the plot is never exploited...
Meh. Not really my cuppa.
