Rainbow Dash sets about the most important of her teaching duties; decorating a copse of truculent trees for Hearth's Warming. Just as well she's got a new teaching assistant, Sweetie Belle, to delegate to.
Written for SockPuppet for the 2019 Jinglemas collab.
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Nicely done! I always enjoy how you weave your stories together with so many different pieces coming together to form the window to see it through.
Really liked the wandering pones! That was inspired!
Horray! Better than I imagined!
My deep and sincere thanks!
9999623
Thank you, Olden! I'm deid fond of the pines myself, and I've used them in a couple of other stories prior to this. They managed to find a role in this one too, the clever things.
9999626
Deeply glad it satisfies!
Very nice :)
9999677
Thank you!
This raises several questions. Among them, "How many book-wyrms live in Twilight's castle?"
And to think, people thought Rainbow Dash wasn't qualified to be a teacher.
The only thing that surprises me about Pinkie speaking Tree is that Applejack wasn't negotiating. Possibly with Burnt Oak as an assistant.
Of course, that might result in the pines wandering away from the School at a rapid clip...
Full disclosure: I didn't even register it as a pun until she said something.
Lovely stuff, especially Dash's doubts about shuffling the Cu-TA Crusaders about the faculty. She's one of Scootaloo's biggest fans, after all, and that extends to the rest of the team too. A heartwarming and hilarious read from start to finish. Thank you for it.
9999810
When the sort of L-space that her collection brings to bear gets involved, you don't even want to know what that does to the book-wyrm numbers.
This is the sort of reaction that makes Rainbow Dash sulk for the rest of the day. You monster.
Glad you liked it, and that Dash's admiration for all the Crusaders came through clear! She's a mare that recognises awesome when she sees it, after all.
Good gracious, I'd hate to see her fridge then.
Poor Sweetie.
Poor, poor Sweetie.
Applejack and her many freshly built apple sheds would say yes. Yes it is.
Who if nothing else has precious little high ground to occupy on that front, so there's that going for that idea.
There's something odd going on with grammar here. It feels like two sentences kinda stitched into one -- the second part doesn't follow from "if I had to guess" very well.
A wonderful little story.
Apart from the whole thing, I think I like Trixie's part most of all.
Doubtlessly a lesson well-learned from Daring Do, along with such gems as spending as little time in the classroom as possible, and purloining the choicest nibbles at the buffet.
Woah there Rainbow Dash; you're talking to a former Cutie Mark Crusader! She likely still has traumatic memories about sap.
Oh yes. Definite recollections of the laboratory cupboards at Transylvania Polygnostic University.
10000036
Actually yeah, you might have something there. Maybe it just needs that first 'And' removed?
Great story. Exploring the time when the CMC were preparing to become teachers was pretty inspired. It's a reason for Sweetie and Rainbow to interact that I never would have thought of, but makes perfect sense. It was interesting seeing Rainbow's wisdom (and "wisdom") and how she interacts with Sweetie, and I liked seeing the other glimpses of life at the school.
I have to say, I'm not sure decorating moving trees is the best thing to do, haha. I also liked the book-wyrm.
Nice! I got the pun, first try!
There's some sorta lesson in pairing them up with the ponies they're most opposite from, first.
It's like the closet to Narnia, but in reverse.
Drunk star creation. Yup, that could never go wrong.
What happens if Twilight drops by and sees the Bookwyrm? You buy a hundred bit limited edition biography of Empress Silver Crown, store it in a safe place in your School of Friendship, and when you come back it's risen like a phoenix and is eyeing off the history section in the library.
That's not going to end well at all.
10000036
"Rainbow, for the love of pete! We have risk assessment procedures for a reason. You have to ask me before doing anything with an element of risk or where the consequences aren't entirely—"
"Cough mind-magicking-the-Princesses cough."
"—clear or you THAT DOESN'T COUNT, SHUT UP."
So there was. That's the first 'And' removed, per CrystalWaters' suggestion, which should help make it a wee bit more coherent. Much obliged for spotting it.
10000113
Trixie whipping Gallus into shape for the Royal Guard was a fun wee snippet that occurred as I wrote, and honestly, it could do with its own full-blown fic. Equestria's greatest guidance counsellor will counsel you towards your destined vocation, no matter how terrifyingly she has to guide you there.
10000241
The finale spoiled us with fic potential, and how the CMC became the semi-respectable teachers glimpsed in the last montage seemed to merit a wee bit of a dive. Glad you liked this!
10000342
This is the sort of reaction that makes Rainbow Dash insufferable for the rest of the day. Much better.
10000484
It's never easy for an Equestrian librarian, finally completing a shelf and then watching the contents of said shelf sprout wings and fly away.
Well, this was a nice bit of post-finale Hearth's Warming slice of life.
10000646
Thank you! Glad you liked it.
Deck the pines with lots of tinsel, fa la la la, la la la!
Rainbow's leaving out the obvious, of course: Sweetie already knows Rarity and how to work with her, just as AB is familiar with AJ, and Scootaloo with Dash.
10000953
Another point in the rotation system's favour, if Rainbow Dash had been nudged to dwell on it. Classrooms tend to have more than one temperament that needs managing, after all.
As always, you have some lovely descriptions and unique phrases, such as "It was where Order went to die an undignified and unpleasant death."
If I have a couple of nitpicks, it's that I wish the story had gone on a bit longer. Also, this may be your Scottish influence creeping in, but Dash's dialogue seems a bit "off" to me. It's hard for me to imagine her saying "dreadful" and "shall" unless she's doing her Rarity impression.
Interesting sidenote: Apparently Sweetie Belle and Rainbow Dash are so infrequently listed together in stories that the first listed 'Similar' story fimfiction shows me is one from 2014 which was cancelled 2 chapters in.
10001206
If I pride myself on one thing, it's the ability to sometimes contort a description or phrase out of a situation. Trying to do justice to the closet was a fun exercise.
Fair point on Rainbow's dialogue. Though now that that's been observed, the temptation to make her even more aggressively Scottish is pretty strong.
10001274
Oh jings, I remember reading that back in the day when it made the Feature Box. I drank whisky with the author this last EFNW and everything.
10001307
The cringing changeling tried to shape its spine into a right angle, so that it could press itself further into the corner of the cupboard as Rainbow growled at it. "Ahm fair gonny pull yer twigs off, ye manky scunner."
(Upgraded for marginally more plausibility.)
Another wonderful Carabas piece. It really feels like the School of Friendship, as it ages, is turning into Unseen University.
At first I was surprised that Apple Bloom couldn't handle a tree, but then I realized they're working as a grove. I also noticed that these truculent pines only seem to have a problem when dealing with the CMC. And it makes sense! Even many years later, these trees can smell the remnants of the blood of their brethren upon those three.
My only question is, what's going on with the book wyrm? He kind of shows up and then nothing seems to happen with him.
10001318
10001307
She'd be from Clan E-wing, right?
10001599
Any magical school will, with enough time and accumulating misplaced magic, grow increasingly Unseen University-ish. It's one of those fundamental laws.
Glad you like it!
Threw him in as a fun wee detail in the opening scene, kept him around as a wee mirror of Sweetie's internal state in the rest of it - he's mentioned a handful of times. Possibly he's held onto afterwards as Sweetie's class pet/familiar, or released back into the untamed wilds of Rainbow Dash's closet. He's got plenty of options in his future.
Very nice. :)
10002099
Thank you!
Nice one-shot. And surprisingly perceptive Rainbow is best Rainbow (though unicorn Twilight is still best Mane Six; fight me).
Anyway, a punctuation error I spotted.
Comma splice. That comma should be a semicolon.
Spliced sentence aside, though, this was a sufficiently funny story. Merry Christmas.
10002367
Glad you like it, and much obliged for noticing the comma splice! That's it been semi-colon-ified.
and then ... they ... kissed
10006762
The pictures adorning your profile page check out.
I always love when authors go the extra mile to make Equestria just so casually magical with all the critters. If there's one thing that bugged me about the cartoon it was that sometimes it just felt like Pony America (though obviously horse pun city names are fine).
10031758
Concocting suitably magical and punny creatures to populate the world's always great fun. A casually magical setting deserves ambulatory trees and book-dragons.
Rereading stories looking for dragonic magic resistance and filling up my library again. This is as nice as I remembered!
10632461
Glad you still approve!