Life-Led

by Trevor Rain

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Dash, I managed to find another lead, an old order document that recommended two pegasus for a specialty mission. They were sent to a lookout post on the outskirts of the Equestian border. I left in a copy of the recommendation with the photo that was attached to it. I did some research, and managed to find the skyline coordinates for the outpost they were assigned to. You should have learned how to read these back at the academy. I couldn’t find much on them after the orders, I assume they were reported missing in action. There was, however, more information on the post itself. Fort Lifeled; named after a pegasus war hero before that sort of thing was frowned upon.

Rainbow, this fort was abandoned over a decade ago when, then the official border was reduced when the pegasus changed their minds about expansion, and it was for good reason. There are many records of an abnormal amount of fliers gone missing in that area. Not everypony is able to cross the sea and make it in one piece. of the many they sent over to try and map the area, only a few returned which left for some rather vague maps.

Dash, you didn’t tell me why you wanted information on these two, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out after seeing this picture. I know if I were in your position, nothing would prevent me from flying head-first into the sea, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I don’t at least try. Do not go. There is a reason nopody goes outside of Equestria in the first place. It’s different there, the survivors are never the same as they were when they left. Those that have been lost have surely died..."

A.J. closed the folder and threw it back into her saddlebag she picked up back at the farmhouse. She then switched on the lamp that was on a desk so she could better read the book explaining sky coordinates she pulled off the shelf moments before. She had never heard of these before from Rainbow, but Dash never did enjoy talking about her past time at the academy. The coordinates were written like calligraphy, using symbols to represent weather or... the time of day the wind picks up or..

It was complicated.

The figures made no sense to her, but the index in the back of the book made for quick access to the specific set she was looking for. She turned the page and found a few of the symbols to mean coordinates on a map. A.J. then ran across the library to try and find an atlas. She had hoped Twilight, an unicorn with an affinity for books and a close friend, would be here. All she found to greet her was a note explaining her absence. Business at the royal city of Canterlot.

A.J. let out a groan of frustration as she impatiently searched the shelves of books to find what she needed.
“Twilight could find it in a near instant.” she said aloud to herself.

Finally reaching the end of her patience, she turned and kicked a shelf with her hind legs, and was rewarded with a shower of books that fell on her, the last being a large atlas that struck her in the head, followed by a shattering crash from the floor above. making a mental note to check on what could have broken, she rubbed her sore head and took the atlas in her mouth to the table. A.J. found the page that held the right coordinates and marked it before tearing the page out from the book, then storing it in her bag.

Twilight would understand the damage was justified, considering the situation, she hoped.

A.J. ran up the stairs and opened the door to Twilight’s room where she believed the crash to come from. The source was quickly found, for the usually immaculate room was marred by a broken bust of a colt’s head. A.J. walked to the broken shards to hastily brush them under Twilight’s bed, but she stopped when she noticed a small, square, object with purple silk lining it. Picking it up, A.J. saw that it opened. There was revealed to be a necklace, with a stone of the deepest black, wrought upon a chain. A scroll dropped from the box when A.J. lifted the lid, which she quickly picked up and begun to read...

"Enchanting: I have attempted to create my own enchanting spell to gain perspective on the effect magic may have on an inanimate object. The act of weaving a lingering spell is a complicated one to create, though simple to cast, based on its low threshold for needed power (depending on the potency of said Enchantment). the problem that many enchanters seem to face, however..."

A.J. skipped to the end of the page.

"Obsidian seemed to be the most stable. The location spell is permanent, but it’s still impossible to have a perpetual power source, so I designed it to gather energy through the Pony being tracked, and the one searching for the Pony. This is possible if the stone is touching the Pony’s hair or anything from their body. The simplicity of the obsidian producing heat when facing the correct direction, and the increase in intensity when closer, means the stone will have enough magical energy to operate without harming the use. There was one..."

It was all A.J. needed to read. She stowed the scroll back in the box while taking out the necklace to slip around her head, pulling her mane free from the chain and replacing her hat.. The stone felt cool against her chest.. If this thing worked, then she needed to find some hair that belonged to Dash, but she couldn’t think of anywhere nearby that...

An idea struck her, and she ran back downstairs and over to another bookshelf that was not demolished. The shelf was labeled ‘Fiction’, and it only took a moment for her to find the books she was looking for. She grabbed one, and let it fall on the binding to let it open. The book laid out to one of the last pages in the book, one that was bookmarked with a light blue feather. This must have been the closest thing Rainbow had on her to save her page. A.J. looked at the feather that laid among the page, and couldn’t help but smile at the memory of Dash first discovering her love for adventure in books.

A.J. took the feather and painstakingly tied it to the stone using a few strands of her own hair to hold it together. She waited, and held her breath a few moments, then a pulse of heat entered her chest that shocked the baited breath from her lungs. the heat continued to spread through her, and encapsulated her whole body. A.J. was surprised how good the warmth felt, but then the sensation was stolen away in an instant, leaving her cold and shivering. She pulled her body close to try and gain some warmth back. A quarter of an hour passed before her body warmed past the point of shaking.

The stone was warm though. A.J. turned a full circle on the floor. When she faced east, it seemed to pulsate and send heat back into her, but it didn’t rob her like it did before, nor was it as intense of a heart. It was just... telling. She could only hope that this charm would lead her to Dash.

The light outside was starting to dim, and with it, her time. A.j. started to run towards the door leading outside, but stopped, looked around, and found paper back at the desk. She took the time to write out a note for Twilight when she came back. A.J. also left the letter she found, with the photo of Dash’s supposed parents with it. Twilight would know better than her what to do, but there was just no time to wait. Every second was an increase of the danger that Rainbow Dash was in.

A.J. ran then. She ran to the train station situated at the edge of town. The train had already began to move, but it was easy enough for her to gain enough speed to jump into one of the entry ways that dotted the sides. There was no other train till morning, A.J. could not afford to wait that long.

She rushed past the passenger car and, ignoring the stares of the other passengers, rushed to the caboose of the train. She burst open the door that led to the end and stopped to look at the receding town that marked her home. She needed to see it leave.

Memories flashed by.

She had left before, but nothing like this.

It was rumored that death awaited outside of Equestria.

The sun began to give way to the shadow of night as it disappeared behind Ponyville, leaving the land in the care of Luna, and her iconic moon.

As the train continued to pull away, Apple Jack could just make out the smell of apple blossoms, the comforting scent bringing nothing but tears as it faded away.

Comments

[Elitist Scum]

Hey, it's me JTA from GIO. 
Alright, you need to get some sort of pre reader, or pre read your own stuff. I also highly recommend you read it aloud as well, because in all honesty, that was probably one of the most confusing things I've ever read. You need to work on two things; being clear, and being concise. You also need to work on tense usage and formatting.

[Kolwynia]

Kolwynia here, also from GIO. [This ended up being a long post. Like, really long. Hope you don't mind. I was pretty tired when I wrote it, so I sort of went on and on...]

Firstly, your story seems like an interesting one. But your writing needs to be more accessible to capture readers. I'm going to throw some criticism your way and I hope it's constructive and helpful. [I ended up ripping into a few of your sentences, but hopefully it was like a surgeon, not a butcher.]

Okay, when you start your story, the first thing you do is throw a lot of minute details at the reader. Why not? Detailed stories are good ones, right? Isn't it your job as a writer to take the reader on a sensory expedition until they can see every ray of emerald light, smell the crisp, almost spicy scent of the dry leaves, feel the soft earth under their hooves?

Yep, but you are overdoing it just a bit, and it's distracting. I once read a famous science fiction author's opinion on writing styles. He said that some writing is like stained glass, so pretty that you just want to look at it, and some writing is like clear glass, it's not fancy but you can see right through it to the story. Purple prose is almost never a good thing. There are a handful of writers that can pull it off, ones that you just want to lose yourself in their words. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. And this is okay, because most writers aren't. We don't do stained glass well. But we still want to have our words matter. We have stories we want to tell and unless we have a listener or a reader, our stories might as well stay in our heads. So, since we can't make stained glass work, we have to make our writing as clear as possible. We don't even want the reader to notice our words. We want them to brush them aside, to look right through them and see the story.

Right now, your writing is getting in the way. But it's not horrible. It just needs trimmed a bit, like a bush that's overgrown. There's good stuff there, sensory images that you don't want to lose. I recommend that you simplify your writing. Cut phrases that you love. Be merciless. Water it down. Turn it into baby food that readers can ingest with ease. (I don't mean talk down to the reader, but make reading it easy.) A good rule is this: does it sound like something you would say out loud in a conversation? No? Lose it. (I realize that would cut out a lot of great writing in great books. It's a rule that's made to be broken, but it's a good rule regardless.) You are having a conversation with your reader. You are telling her a story. The more conversational you can make your writing, the more at-ease your reader is going to be.

Okay, let's get hands-on with your writing. [I kind of tear into your stuff here. Don't worry about it. If any of my comments are valuable to you, take them to heart. Forget the rest.]

Here's a part of a paragraph you wrote: "Each figure had distinguishing characteristics. The one in lead having a color that could be compared to a clear sky. By her sides are two wings that would be the envy of an eagle with a mane that is of the sky after rain which has been blessed by the sun which is now buffeted by the wind in tandem with her tail of like description." Whenever you edit your stuff, you've got to be as merciless as Pinkamena. You know what I'm talking about. Make those pages bleed. Lets start with that first sentence. It says nothing. Saying that the figures have distinguishing characteristics is like saying that they can be described. It means something, but it's just fluff. The next sentence is going to be doing the actual describing. You don't need a sentence telling the reader they have "distinguishing characteristics." I know what you are trying to do by saying it, but it's just not necessary. So we cut it. The story bleeds, but not much. (It will hurt worse when you have to lose a phrase you think is golden.) Next sentence. This one is too fat. You could just say, "The one in the lead was colored like a clear sky." "Having a color that could be compared to," is fluff. It might seem a small thing, but they add up. (And they add up fast.) The reason it's a problem is this: it makes the reader work harder to get the picture. When you say, "having a color that could be compared to," you are talking around the point. The reader's brain is already ready to just get to it. Have you ever had to listen to someone who talks too slow? It's like that. Next sentence. This one is awkward. "By her sides are two wings that would be the envy of an eagle with a mane..." You see? You just showed the reader an eagle with a mane. That was the picture your reader got. It wasn't the one you tried to send. Also, you didn't tell the reader why her wings would be envied. It it because the wings are strong? Beautiful? Both? (Also "by her sides" is a bit awkward. It sounds like the wings are beside her, instead of a part of her.) Okay, so we cut and patch it up. "...that is of the sky after rain which has been blessed by the sun which is now buffeted by the wind in tandem with her tail of like description." Here is the heart of the awkwardness of the sentence. You want to say rainbow. The reader knows you mean rainbow. Just say rainbow. Make the sentence like clear glass, not stained glass. Your reader is having to work too hard to get the picture. Ah, but you didn't want her to see just any old rainbow, right? You wanted the sky after the rain. You wanted the blessing of the sun. And the buffeting of the wind. It was beautiful! It was, but it was in the way. Cut it up. Make the story bleed. The reader already knows who you are talking about. She knows what she looks like. (By the way, that's no reason not to describe her. You are right to do that. Using the show your reader has seen as a crutch would be bad.) But the description is taking too long, it's too awkward, and it's talking around the point instead of getting to it. If you want to add some magic, take maybe a single quality of a rainbow, and apply it to your description. I mean, what is a rainbow, besides colorful? They are bright. You can't see them at night. They are rare enough that they feel special, and they make you feel special to notice them. Even though everyone loves them, they feel personal, like they were drawn across the sky just for you. (Dash is like that, right?) I don't know. Right now what you're doing is just saying "rainbow" without saying it. Then, "is now buffeted by the wind..." You changed tense there. It felt like a slap to your reader. "...in tandem with her tail..." Tandem is the wrong word, and it feels like it when you read it out loud. "...her tail of like description..." Sounds awkward. You are trying to describe a mane the whole time...then saying, "By the way, the tail looks the same," at the end of the sentence. You can just say her rainbow-colored main and tail were being tossed by the wind.

The point is this: you have a good vocabulary, but you need to be simple in how you use it. Your paragraphs make the reader work too hard. (And you can blame the reader for being too lazy to get into it, but that won't get your stuff read. Readers are lazy. That's just the way it is. It's up to us to make our stuff as accessible as we can, because we want the lazy readers as much as the others. We don't want to lose a single person who might give ear to our story.) Writing in a way that makes the reader work hard means that your writing holds the reader at arms length instead of drawing her in. You get a bit better as the story progresses (chapter two was much more readable, though still had some of the same issues), and your dialogue is clear.

Okay, now that I've written you a novel, here's some advice. After you revise what you have, you still might not get the readership and comments you want and need to improve. Don't be discouraged. Also, try short stories. This one looks like it could be a long one, and writing a long story without a readership to cheer you on can be draining. (You don't need to be drained. You are here to get practice for your original works--so says your bio--not get bogged down forever updating something that is not being read. Don't let that happen.) Short one-shots let you try new things and discover what the readers like and don't like in your stuff (or in general). [And, to be practical, they get on the front page, unlike updates, so you get more chances to get your stuff noticed.]

Keep writing, my friend.