Ostraca

by Reese

Story Idea Snippet (Blog 2018-08-31)

Flash knocked on the doors of Ponyville Castle, and a vision of loveliness opened them.

Her eyes were sparkling amethyst orbs; her mane swept elegantly down from her skull, and the sunlight gleamed on her ever-present grin.

Oh, ah, hello Flash. What brings you here today?

“A letter from Princess Cadence, Your Highness!” The letter was produced and offered out on a wing in the same motion as his bow.

Right... Well... Do you have somewhere you need to be?

“No, ma'am; the earliest train back isn't until tomorrow, and the Princess said I was even free to stay in Ponyville a few days if I wanted.”

Of course. I supposed you'd better come in, then.

Taking the letter in her magic, she yawed around and floated deeper into the castle, Flash following.

Most ponies had been at least a little unnerved when Princess Twilight ritually slaughtered seven thousand mirror pool clones to ascend to the pinnacle of undeath, but Flash thought it just highlighted her intelligence and strength. Most ponies also tended to be a little more unnerved when his feelings on the youngest princess came up in conversation, but he was sure ponies would come to properly appreciate her in time.

Sooo, how are things up north?

“Oh, they're going very well, ma'am; we've just finished reclaiming another of the old satellite towns from the ice.”

Good, good...

They turned into a small, intimate dining room; two chairs slid out from the table, and Twilight nodded at one as she took station over the other.

Please, do have a seat. I sent a message to Spike, so he should be along with tea soon.

Flash sat. There was a silence.

“...Is that a new wig? Ma'am?”

Hm? Oh, yes, it is; I've actually got a lot of them now. You should have seen Rarity when she realized that she could style my mane without me actually being present.

“I hope that helped with the... clothing thing; I know you said last time she was pretty upset about that.”

It did, some. And that, apparently, undeath motifs are very “in” now, and she has better inspiration than any other designer.

“You know, I had noticed mares wearing a lot more bones these days.”

A nod. She still says that just animating dresses under myself isn't the same, though. I've told her that I'll probably start using that illusion spell eventually, at least for formal occasions, but I want to make the point that--

Spike walked in with a tray holding two cups, a teapot, and a selection of biscuits and set it down on the table.

Oh, thank you, Spike; these look good, as usual.

“No problem, Twilight.” Then, to Flash, “So what is it this time?”

“A letter to Princess Twilight from Princess Cadence.”

Oh, right, I still need to open that.

Author's Note:

Author's note section originally at the beginning of the blog post:
So, back at Bronycon, I happened to be in Quills and Sofas for part of a writing workshop event. During the event, I got inspired with the core of this, and at the end, when a contest was announced, I thought I'd see about writing something based on it and entering. Unfortunately, while what I'm presenting here came pretty quickly and easily, I had great difficulty going beyond this. And as the deadline for the contest is September 1st, well, it looks like I won't be entering a completed version of this without a time machine. Still, I did have the idea of putting this fragment up in a blog post and at least letting people see it, even if I don't have a full story. I'll put an explanation at the end.

And at the end:
And the explanation:
So, basically, the the thing that inspired this was an example of purple prose given during the event in Q&S; the second paragraph of the fragment is basically what I remember of the example. And pretty immediately looking at that, I thought something along the lines of “Well, obviously this Twilight is a demilich”. Because, come on, sure, maybe the original author just meant it as an elaborate, flowery description for a unicorn or alicorn, but gems for eyes, an explicit mention of her skull, a constant grin? Totally a demilich in a wig. So from that I got the idea of Twilight as a levitating skull with gems in her eye sockets and a wig looking like her old mane and Flash Sentry not really minding and still being attracted to her. There were going to be mention of things like Twilight's sigh sounding like the wind from a just-opened tomb in the desert (to Flash, sounding of ancient secrets and power and wonders few have had the privilege of seeing) and Twilight eating her teacakes involving not moving them to her mouth and having bite-sized chunks crumble in small bursts of negative energy. And Cadance is shipping Twilight and Flash, in large part because Twilight's been dating Starlight and Cadance thinks Starlight's a bad influence on her (the whole, you know, undead thing).

It was, needless to say, probably going to be unapologetic crack.

But, oh well. Hopefully anyone reading this will still get some enjoyment from what I did manage to get down!
(And if anyone gets actual inspiration, please feel free to run with it.)

And a new, novel Author's Note section not in the blog post:
...I don't know, maybe I will try to expand this at some point. I did recently suggest it to Super Trampoline when he was looking for story seeds, but eh, we'll see what happens.