Epilogue: The Harmonious World
Rarity’s hand kept winding up in Tempest’s. It felt nice there, slim and delicate fingers intertwined with Tempest’s strong, rough ones. But Rarity and Pinkie liked to load Tempest down with their shopping. With her only hand spoken for, she had to hold the bags awkwardly in the crook of her right arm.
It was all right. Tempest liked to feel needed.
Mooby World was good. The rides were fun. The food varied in quality, according to Rarity, but Tempest wolfed all of it down with equal gusto, from fried counter service crap to perfectly grilled ribeye steaks as big as her head. There were people from all over the world to look at. It made Tempest consistently, continuously happy.
Being happy all the time felt very strange.
The characters took some getting used to, though. Pinkie had taken revenge on Rarity for the Ponypolitan by making them stand in line for two hours to meet Surly Duck. It was just a person in a costume, but Pinkie acted like she was actually meeting a cartoon character. Tempest didn’t understand.
The ponies were more unsettling still — after the first contact incident, Mooby Entertainment Ltd. had somehow acquired the likeness rights to actual ponies from the actual pony world. It explained Tempest’s Twilight Sparkle tunic (she’d bought a new one the first day at the park), but it made her feel strange. There was no sign of any brave light blue pegasus stallions, but she had nightmares of one stalking her through the park and snapping her neck when it caught her.
It was their third and final day there when Pinke said they had to go on The Harmonious World before they left.
“Pinkie no!” gasped Rarity. “Surly Duck was bad enough. That ride is the most tedious, most infantile…”
Tempest held up her right arm. “Is that it?” The ride facade was a technicolor bas-relief showing a cavalcade of equestrian ponies, capped off with a spread-winged Princess Twilight in full regalia.
Rarity rolled her eyes. “Yes.”
“You can stay here, Rarity. I have to ride it.”
Rarity came with them.
It was a slow boat ride through a series of dimly lit chambers, where black-light enhanced ponies, dragons, gryphons, and yaks sang in loving harmony. It was an offensively exaggerated misinterpretation of Equestrian culture. Ponies were silly and threw pies, yaks were big and gruff and lived in primitive yurts in the snow, gryphons were fierce and rude, and dragons were worse.
It was ridiculous and it made Tempest laugh.
There was something achingly familiar about the song. Tempest was sure she’d hear it somewhere before, but she couldn’t place it. Maybe on the radio.
Open up your eyes
See the world the way it stands
You live only in this moment
Your choices yours to plan!
Open up your eyes,
Enter our sweet and happy land
It’s time to grow up and be wise
Come on sad one
Open up your eyes.
Tempest knew she didn’t deserve to be forgiven. Maybe nobody did. But Twilight had forgiven her, and knowing that… well, it made it possible to try to live as if she deserved it.
The ride boat drifted out into the light.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- Oroboro · 6.3k words · 64 7 · 1k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.107 seconds
Total duration
1,013 users online
2,269,471 hits today, 2,724,632 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
In any case, a fantastic tale of a stranger in a strange land, aside from a few proofreading flubs. Thank you immensely for Tempest going through the looking glass and what she found there. And sorry for the comment spam.
9246240
Thank you for all the nice comments! They increase the heat, so I don't mind!
Proofreading. Ugh. I need to start paying Scoots so he's motivated to meet my unreasonable deadlines.
So, does that mean that, at some point, Tempest will be seeing a cartoony stylized version of herself?
Needs an AU tag
why get rid of her hand? Her broken horn should have no effect
First Contact Incident? I thought that there was an amnesia effect.
Very sweet. Possibilities for Tempest Rarity in the future. Very nice song.
I like the idea of the show as a mildly offensive well meaning exaggeration of the real thing, it's what half the fics here do anyway so it's a nice meta-nod.
Definitely enjoyed it alot. Needs some proofreading, but glass houses and all.
9247092
It's a dexterity and access issue, so it translates as a lost hand.
9246901
Eyup.
9246473
*Tempest watches MLP Movie*
Tempest: "This... this isn't what happened at all!"
9246759
If you can't make pop culture references in fanfic, where CAN you do it?
9246645
If no one has done it yet, it does need to be done. I'll poke around Youtube for it later.
9247764
That was my thought process EXACTLY. Rainbow wants to go do something awesome in a strange land, but she's too sweet, deep down inside, to want to join the army and kill people.
Rarity would love to do overseas volunteer work. In. Like. Paris. Or Bangkok. :D
Your character arc is spot on, I should write this at some time.
9247857
Nope, got it from bio class awhile ago covering human evolution. But it’s one of my favorite bits of trivia, and one of the reasons we got along with wolves well enough they moved in.
And yeah...running. I am trying to get better but I’m really not that good yet. Ah well, it takes time. And I’d probably dead or back at home chipping rocks, being half blind and all.
9247800
CONTINUITY ERROR. Hides under bed
Thank you!
YEAH, my best editor is in college, with all the business and 'distracted by exciting life events' that implies. I try to get by with grammarly but... grammarly is kind'a minimally useful. D:
Eh... Passable.
9248433
PARTICIPANT.
It's okay, but it feels more like a teaser to a full story. It just doesn't seem to add up to anything.
Will there be a sequel?
Oh by the way, since I haven't seen it before, what are we calling Tempest/Rarity? Perfect Storm? Temerity?
9305418
In the distant future, where it is no longer A Long Time Ago, and embracing the Magic of Friendship let the Chiss bring out the multi-colored side of their chromamelanin. The situation was almost exactly analogous to the changeling metamorphosis.
What's that? "Just raises further questions"? I can't hear you la de da de daaa....
9255889
>Perfect Storm
Drama levels off the charts.
And sexually? Elsewhere I've written Rarity as a dominatrix and (in unpublsihed works) Tempest as a very bossy masochist. 
OMG I at least have to write a clop fic about this.
9309775
I'm certainly intrigued.
I really enjoyed seeing a post-contact human world, and Tempest’s journey was interesting. Good story