Welcome to Trotondo, where the lakes freeze overnight and the snow never stops falling.
Welcome to the outermost Equestrian colony, where the foreign threat is so marginally low that only two royal pegasi guards were needed to keep it safe.
Welcome to the town protected by Dawn Guard and Dust Mote, two peacekeepers so hopelessly in love that they don't even know it.
... Thankfully, the other four hundred and thirty eight denizens of Trotondo are more than willing to help resolve this predicament.
Chapters (2)
This sounds like nice story, READ IT NOW NAAAAAAAAAIL!
Edit: Eeeeeeeee! I friggin' loved this story! It's so damn cute, oh Celestia, favorited.
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Cute and romantic. Very sad changeling and 'dead hive' made my heart aching.
Adorable, heartfelt, genuinely amusing, and clearly written by someone who took their time to try and get it right. You've written my favourite changeling story.
Holy Hairballs, you wrote a story! It's very sweet and I proclaim this ship adorbs! When I've finished writing the next scene on Pipsqueak's Day Off, I'll give you some detailed feedback.
Looking forward to epilogue,
Chuckles.
THIS NEEDS MORE CHAPTERS.
Anyway, as is it's a great story. I especially loved the "so madly in love that they don't know it" dynamic. It gave a sense of innocence to Dust Mote and Dawn Guard that just upped the cuteness of the story.
My internet turns on, and what do I find but 5.5 comments (I saw that double one, Jack :P), 10 upvotes and 96 views! Amazing!
Thanks for liking it this much, everyone, and I'll have the epilogue up ASAP!
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Can we have more fics please ?
We must have more!
Wow. "Dead Hive"? How tragic! I mean... is he the last living Changeling? No wonder he's hiding out. But now... he and Dawn can have little Ponylings. And be happy together.
You were right. This is an excellent story of an undisguised Changeling in love.
Awww. That was adorably sweet! Even more unashamed, undisguised Changeling love. And there was, of course, a potential kinky spin. Diamond Dog criminal humpery on special occasions. Hehe.
A cute little followup. Good times!
Thanks for all the kind words and favs and follows and upvotes, guys! It was a pleasure writing this for you and all the positivity is nothing if not awesome :3
Though, to all you readers, I have a single question...
*Flails arms around*
Aaaaahhhhh where are all of these views and favs and follows and upvotes in the last few days coming from?! Did I get on a famous authors userpage or the like? I don't know so inform me if I am O_o!
.... Not that I'm complaining, of course :D
(I hope somebody sees this lol)
The first chapter was cute and at times funny (Pinkie Pie..what the hell are you doing?), the second was ....hilarious, it took on a totally different tone than the first one, and damn I laughed alot.
Really good story mate, keep up the good work.
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Your story has been added to The Dreamers, in the folder Dreams of Romance.
1602481 Yes this.
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Last Changeling? No. The last of his Hive? Yes. Hopefully chapter two will explain what happened to said Hive.
Holy wow this is great
Heh. This chapter was decidedly weird, but still, nice :)
As for where faves and stuff are coming from, personally I marked this as Read Later when noticing it in the Queen Chrysalis' Changeling Hive group, and now took the time to read it (and fave it. And upvote it)
Also, I got a story that has a rather similar premise, though in my case the changeling has been married for 20 years when the invasion messes up everything.
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... Nyergyuds, commenting on my story...!
*silent fanscream*
Really though, if that is the reason, thanks XD ~ its nice, knowing that the other half of the story's inspiration (Flitter!) likes it too
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Heh. I'm hardly Pen Stroke, you know
Always nice to serve as an inspiration, though
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dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/sillyfilly_Twilight_Sparkle.png No, no, NO! What you SHOULD be sorry for is including "Trollestia" and "SCIENCE!". Actually, including "SCIENCE!" wasn't all that bad, but making me want to buck Tia's horn off that Pretty Pretty Princess head of hers was downright UNFORGIVABLE!
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very cute story
. Please tell me you have a sequel planned
Aww, how very cute. Glad to see Celestia's as reasonable (and mischievous) as ever.
Is this something against Canada?
JK, great story
Bloody fantastic! And i'm almost always avail for editing/prereading duties. I don't do tragedy or grimdark tho >< Sad's a maybe and everything else I'm game. clop doesn't phase me but excessive gore does.
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Huh, I've never really had a pre-reader before... Not sure how that'd work XD
But if I ever need one/multiple, you'll be the first one I'll send word too :D
Hystrically adorable. trollestia is best pretty pony princess
pfff ahahahha one of the best goddamn stories i've ever read...really it had romance, seriousness and comedy in the right amount and time
Good job
Oww, I thought this was gay romance! Poo.
interesting... i like it but i must say at time i had to reread a few sentences to make sence of some parts but all in all i saw nothing wrong
Celestia is best pony and she knows it. Thoroughly enjoyable read
A very nice take on changeling love without needless drama and full of that good fluffy feeling you get from watching the show. Excellent work.
Firstly, this story is so unbelievably adorable and amazing.
Secondly, a BIG mistake I noticed with you'd quotations. When you continue a sentence after dialogue (Example: “De-atomizer charged,” Stated the Immigrator in the same pseudo-engaged tone, “Firing now.”), no capitalization is needed. (So: “De-atomizer charged,” stated the Immigrator in the same pseudo-engaged tone, “Firing now.”) That pretty much happens throughout the entire chapter.
While it was a large, repeating error, it was virtually unnoticeable. Great job!
Lastly, your story was soooo cute!
Loved it!! Looking forward to more adventures concerning Dawn and Dust, if they are to come!
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Aha! I knew I wasn't the only one noticing this O_o!
... As it turns out, public education doesn't teach these rules (or, at least, not in grades 0-10, from what I've experienced) and wasn't aware of the correct way to do this. And I'm still not all that good at it yet :|
So while chapters one and two will likely remain incorrect for the rest of eternity, the future ones shall indeed have (hopefully) correct dialogue grammar!
Thanks for pointing it out, though
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That's actually still incorrect. In that example, the "Firing now.” is clearly a new sentence, meaning the part before it should not end with a comma:
“De-atomizer charged,” stated the Immigrator in the same pseudo-engaged tone. “Firing now.”
A comma at the end of the narration sentence is only needed if the 2 quoted parts around it are one sentence split in half, for example, on a sentence like this:
"Actually," she said, "there is a way."
As you see, in this case, the second part also doesn't start with a capital letter.
On the subject of quoting rules... Equestria Daily has a very useful document called the "Editor's Omnibus". Especially the "Self-Editing section" contains a treasure of information on correct formatting
I hope I won't jinx this but it's so rare to see story with ZERO downvotes, that speaks how awesome this story is.
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NOOO you jinxed it D:
Though I *am* quite proud of it.. Even if I know updating it will inevitably get some sort of downvote, I'm content with having a story so loved
absolutely fricking awesome, adorable and any other positive adjective that starts with "a". You should feel god damn proud if writing something with kind of quality, damn proud.
I don't know if your offer still stands but if you want somebody to bounce ideas off I'm on the the site everyday.
Excellent work, unbelievably sweet and endearing.
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Why thank you, when I somehow manage to get back to my keyboard to write more things I think I'll take you up on that :O
Loving it so far! Keep up the good work!
D'aaaw, this is cute. And great fun to read. You are one of the few who manage to make a more active, humorous narrator work and I can't even really complain about your use of parenthesis'. Well done.
There are a few issues though. Your shift from humour to heartrending angst and drama is very sudden and jarring. The humour parts and the serious parts feel so different that they might as well be different stories. I think you should work on making the tone of the story more consistent. I'm not saying you can't have the drama, that's obviously some of the point of this story, but it comes across as "too much" to me. Just tone down the bleakness of the angsty part.
Also, your writing in the Mote's house in general gets somewhat confusing, less polished. The descriptions and actions are a bit hard to follow and your metaphors smacks a little of "trying too hard".
Specific nitpicks:
"a pile of pony and wooden shards" It sounds like it is a pile of pony shards and wooden shards, like the ponies shattered too. I suggest "pony and bits of wood", because that clears it up and avoids "wooden shards", which I find kinda odd. To me, you can't have wooden shards, because in my head, shards are of things that shatter, like glass or crystal, not wood.
You forget to remove italics when you shift between Dawn's thoughts and the "she thought" in some paragraphs. That is "‘No, I’m not that ugly, Dust said so. Kinda.’ She thought, the once-vanishing blush now returning in full force. ‘I mean, he was a little drunk off of the lemonade I spiked a little bit, and he was complimenting everything…" All that is in italics, but everything between "She" and "full force." shouldn't be in italics. You do that with several of those thought paragraphs.
"Dust (whose face was also as beet-red as, well, a beet) " I think the joke here falls flat, just go with "beet-red".
(which was loud enough to let Hearing Aid at the front of the audience to hear, and as such repeat to the rest in the form of excited shouting. “About this time, after our shifts?” You forgot to end the parenthesis.
"(who had all acquired popcorn by this point from the mysterious pink vender)" He, go Pinkie. But it is "vendor", with an "o".
"Now, as one might imagine, Dawn was now thoroughly worried for Dust." Lose the first "now", it gets repetitive with two "nows" in the same sentence. It would work just fine with "As one might imagine..."
"even when he was caught into a conversation along the way (an occurrence which he told Dawn happened quite frequently)," "caught into conversation" sounds odd. I suggest "when he got caught up in conversation" or "roped into conversation". Also an occurrence doesn't happen. Occurrence kinda already has "happen" within it. So I suggest either "a frequent occurrence from what he told Dawn" or "something which he told Dawn happened quite frequently".
"At first, the mare was caught up in her worry for Dust, as was explained in detail above." Again, the overly "talky" narrator gets a little much here. I suggest losing everything after "Dust" here.
"Yet as she passed by the venders and restaurants," Again, it's "vendors".
"Swallowing deeply," Odd choice of words, I suggest "thickly", the feeling of discomfort there is that you swallow something thick, not that it needs to go deep.
"Dawn furrowed her eyebrows and took a step into the bedroom that smelled strongly of new." Either you forgot something after "new" or you should reword it slightly. I suggest "smelled strongly of new furniture and freshly cleaned floors" or something like that. "strongly of new" doesn't really work if you ask me.
"the way his eyes refused to look at her," I think eyes don't look. People look, eyes move, dart, roll and stuff. That's the same as arms don't wave, people wave their arms. I suggest "the way his eyes turned everywhere but her" or "the way he refused to look at her".
"corporeally decorated house" What does "corporeally" mean? I have no idea.
"but Dust felt his heart (or equivalent thereof)" Pretty sure every thing of pony size that is actually biological has an actual heart. I'd lose the parenthesis.
Now, you should know that the fact that I criticize so much means that I enjoyed your work enough that I want to see you do even better, so take all my nitpicking as a show of my enjoyment. Half of it is a matter of opinion, but I hope you can use some of it.
Time to look at the epilogue.
D'aaaw, that was fun. And utterly adorable. The writing and tone is much more consistent here and Celestia being mischievous is hilarious.
And you used "vendor" here instead of "vender", that's great!
Two nitpicks:
"Celestia would’ve noticed the emotional equivalent of a bright red blush pop up on Dust’s face through the holes in his legs from where had been frozen," You lack either a "he" or a "they" between "where" and "had".
"The changeling managed remain upright," You lack a "to" after "managed".
Other than that, this was a great read. And I like the way you keep the utopian feel of Equestria, instead of all the, as you say, grimdark depictions of racism, speciesism, hate and mistrust that many write in works with changelings.
Happy writing.
2779928 I'm glad you liked it so much! (Though I still haven't finished that promised chapter three
)
And thanks a ton for catching that stuff (active narrator bit made my day :D) ~ as you probably figured out, the only one who sees this before it's published is silly 'ol me, so errors pop up. I'll update it soon with what you mentioned - I can't have my personally-best story look bad for history's sake :)
As far as specifics go, though...
My biggest regret. I didn't foreshadow the house scene at all, and in revisions, couldn't seem to find good moments to do so that wouldn't decimate the flow of the story. And yes, in hindsight, I did overdo the drama and overstylization (the choppiness) a fair amount there - at least for all the nonexistent buildup I had in the rest of the story.
Infernal vocabularies, I thought everyone knew that :<
... And then I looked it up, and it meant tangible, which is exactly the opposite of what I wanted to convey. Eheh, oops. Vocabs are hard >_<
Author-canon (eew
); I was going to go into more detail in another as-of-yet-unmade story, but I touch on changeling biology a bit in my Starswirl story. The gist of it is that they're 100% magical beings that are filled with green liquid life-energy (ala Danny Phantom ectoplasm, if you will) and protected with a shell. This stuff is what gives them the ability to live, grow, love, think and do all of those wonderful pony things (except blush, because it doesn't change color).
Again, thanks for the help, and I'm really glad you enjoyed
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE WRITE MORE!!!!! DAWN AND DUST ARE SO CUTE!!! <3 And I actually really enjoyed the somewhat dramatic change in tone. also, Troll Celestia :P
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Soon :D!
... I hope :x (Got somethin else I'm working on right now, though D:)
Silky Sheets???? I think i heard that name before but from what?
I loved the reference to Wild Joe and Ralph from some of Odyssey's music. It made me laugh.
Awwright. This is just one of these stories I like to reread every once in a while, you know? And, while I'm at it... some corrections.
First of all: in the classic "s/he said" construction, the actual part behind the quote should not have a capital letter. Notable examples:
> “You can be Dust or you can be Skitter, I don’t care,” She said
> ‘So tonight went a little bit differently than planned…’ Thought the mare
In both of these, the piece after the quote should not be capitalized. You should go over the whole thing and see what others there are, because it's an error you seem to make all the time. As I already said in a reply on chapter 2, the full rules can be found in Equestria Daily's Editor's Omnibus. Fimfiction's own Writing Guide (which, coincidentally, can be found in the dropdown menu under "FAQ" in the top bar) has information on that as well.
For the rest, I spotted one tiny mistake:
> who’s tear-stained cheeks were drying
whose
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Argh, yeah, that and 'its/it's' seem to be my biggest rivals at the moment X_x
But thanks for helping me out with my silly grammar, I'll see what I can do to fix it up!
Forgot to add in my previous comment. I love Dawn's "I have a date and NOTHING is ruining it!"
The immigration office was meh for me, but that epic run-on sentence was great.
I love this so much.