• Published 4th Mar 2020
  • 526 Views, 111 Comments

Mapping Manehattan - The Red Parade



Fiddlesticks and Lightning Dust explore a ruined Manehattan.

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Hope Hotel is alive with activity. The sentries wave at them hurriedly as Lightning and Fiddle approach. Their words overlap with each other, but the message is clear: someone’s here to see them.

They pass through the lobby, and Fiddle takes a second to give her traded bottle of painkillers to one of the medics. After exchanging thanks, Lightning and Fiddle head up the stairs to their room.

Inside, a pegasus waits for them. She’s studying their map intensely, with a few open books nearby. Her saddlebags, gun, and signature pith helmet sit on the bed.

Daring Do glances up at them and nods in acknowledgement. She shakes hooves with them and smiles. They’ve been doing good work, if the map is any indication.

Fiddlesticks pulls out her book and passes it over to Daring. The book has everything she needs to know about the state of Manehattan: the factions, the settlements, all of it.

Daring nods and sets the book aside. She’ll look at it later. From what she’s seen so far, Manehattan’s in about the same state as Seaddle is.

Lightning speaks up. She asks if Daring knows what’s happening in Canterlot.

Daring rubs her chin. She knows that something is going on, but she isn’t quite sure what. But just maybe, things will start looking up.

Lightning and Fiddle glance at each other. The future's suddenly seeming a whole lot brighter now.

She thanks them again for scouting for her. Now, Daring has a good feel for the state of Equestria, and she’s fairly optimistic that with leadership and a few miracles, they can start to rebuild.

Fiddle asks what they should do next.

Daring smiles at them. They should keep doing what they have been doing. Because it’s giving ponies hope. And hope is more important than anything else right now.

The three of them go out to the balcony, looking out over the city. The wind carries with it a voice, one that sings a song of everything. It sings of the past and the pain and the blood, but it also sings of tomorrow and the things still to come.

Lightning turns her gaze to Fiddle as the glow of the moon falls gently across her face. She loves the way the stars shine in her eyes and the little tired sigh she gives.

Daring goes back into the hotel, but neither of them notice. Lightning digs into her bag and pulls the ring she found earlier. She gingerly turns it over in her hooves and clears her throat.

She catches Fiddle’s eye and holds the ring up, her trembling lips forming four words.

Fiddle doesn’t answer. She pulls her into a kiss as tears and emotions wrack their tired, broken bodies.

There’s a voice carried by the wind, moving throughout the city. It’s quiet and subdued, but it is there. It speaks of one word: hope. Tonight, this voice grows a little bit louder, and the stars above glow a little bit brighter.

Author's Note:

mapping manehattan

the red parade

started 4th March, 2020. completed 29th June, 2020.

thank you.

One day, like this
We'll never be the same
Never, forever
Like ghosts in the snow,
Like ghosts in the sun.

Comments ( 10 )

Was the hotel named before?

I like how this ended with a proposal. It didn’t surprise me that much considering you ship Lightning Dust and Fiddlesticks, but it feels earned after all they’ve been through.

10307945
I believe it was, yeah, and I had this ending in mind long, long before I wrote never forever, so this would have been the first time I wrote them like this lol

Reading every Depth in Innocence Contest entry: Story 9 Bonus Story 2: Mapping Manehatten by The Red Parade
(Since Disqualified, but I still really like it)

...Wow. That was certainly way heavier than the previous entries I read, in both theme and word count. An intriguing glimpse into a post apocalyptic Manehatten, destroyed by vague disaster.

This honestly felt a bit too real, in a number of way. Not only is it almost uncomfortably topical, but it also doesn't really feel like a pony story, The world feels like our own, and nothing about the story seems like it needs to be about ponies. I feel like this could be changed to be a story about humans fairly easily.

Not that that really affected my enjoyment of this story, though. As one of the longer entries, this story allows it's characters the change to be fleshed out and given depth. I enjoyed the slow world and character building, as each new aspect was added over time building up a (still incomplete) picture of the world. The unique format was interesting too, and the lack of direct dialogue gives it an almost eerie feel. This is definitely one of my favorite entries so far.

I haven’t read many Depth in Innocence entries, but I’m guessing this will win the “most interesting world” award.

10312735

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!

The most amusing thing to me is that I started this story way back in early May, long before the Coronavirus reared its ugly head, back before everything that's been going on in the political sense and all that not fun stuff. That was one of the reasons I never explicitly said what had happened here: I originally envisioned a sickness like in the Division, but it just didn't feel right to tie that back in after what had happened in our real lives.

Overall, yeah, there were a couple of things I wanted to fix or wish I had done differently, and I'll freely admit that this story probably toes the line between E and T more than I had intended. If I get DQ'd for that then I can accept it.

I get the "this doesn't feel like a pony story" complaint quite a lot, particularly with my AU stories. I'm personally fine with this, and this is in a way a good thing: it means you can't just discount a story as "something that could never happen to me" because hey, it's real and very well could. You never know!

But I can see how it'd affect people who want to read pony and not humans. It's still something I'll have to work on with AU's. Thanks for your thoughts, and again glad you enjoyed it!

10312876

Well I haven't read many myself so I'll try to not make assumptions there. Thanks and good luck!

10312885
I assumed that Equestria was ruined by a conflict of some sort.

10312899
It could be. I left it open-ended so you can draw your own conclusions.

10313050

That's fair, I can't say I didn't see this coming. I'll be changing the rating to T after this anyways. I'd definitely be interested in collaborating whenever the contest is over. Good luck to those of you participating and thanks for hosting!

10313050

Also I appreciate you getting that far, I was thinking that you'd disqualify it after chapter four or five. But again I understand and respect your decision and wish you luck judging the other qualifying entries!

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