The Star-Borne Colt
A “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” Fanfiction
Written by Jade Dawn
Fluttershy’s wings drooped limply, her jaw opening and closing as she breathed in and out, struggling to find words. And her mind reeled, spiraling as though struck by a train and sent hurtling uncontrollably through the air.
Over the years, Fluttershy had seen and experienced many unusual things. Supermane had been strange. When she’d come searching for the truth behind Dawning Hope she had expected strange.
But not like this. Never in a million years like this.
“H-he’s…he’s…” she stammered.
“You can say it,” Cornstalk told her gently. “It’s alright. It’s about what it is, anyway.”
Fluttershy gulped down a breath, and then, as though now emboldened by permission, at last spat out: “D-Dawning is…is an alien?”
Cornstalk nodded. “Yes. As far as we know, he’s not from this planet.”
“B-but…where…what…”
“We don’t know,” Amber Grain replied. “We don’t know where he came from or even what he is. All we really know is that he came from…from out there, somewhere.”
Fluttershy looked over at Woven Light and Flax. “Did…did either of you two ever know…”
Woven shook her head. “I was only around the same age as he would’ve been at the time.”
“And I hadn’t even been born yet,” Flax added. “We didn’t get in on the secret until, well…years later.”
Fluttershy slowly leaned back in her seat; she hadn’t noticed that she’d been leaning steadily more forward as the couple told their story, thoroughly engrossed in it.
“…what happened next?” She continued at last. “Were…were you scared?”
“Scared?” Cornstalk scoffed. “We were terrified. Well…” he shuffled in his seat, looking a little embarrassed. “…well, I was, anyway. Ambie on the other hoof…”
“I really can’t explain it,” Amber said. “Even before we found him inside, I just felt somehow I…needed to go out to that thing. I suppose you could call it curiosity, but it felt stronger than that. Just this…this need that I couldn’t ignore…to this day I still don’t understand it myself…but it led us to him.”
Cornstalk let her finish before going on. “I patched the cart back up as best I could, enough to get us home. We took him and that little crystal he was wearing along. Couldn’t bring the ship, it was just too big. I figured that maybe I could come back out later with a couple of friends and we could haul it back to town that way. Ambie spent the whole ride home with the colt, I…don’t remember saying much.”
“You were quiet, I remember,” Amber said to him. “Very quiet. We didn’t even really talk to each other until we’d gotten back home…”
Cornstalk leaned against the window at the far side of the living room, looking out towards the pine forest beyond. Even from here could see smoke still rising in the distance, wispy and dark gray against the still darkened night sky over the distant tree line.
He didn’t even know why he was still looking out that way, seeing how it had been like that since they’d left the crash site. Looking for more meteors to come down, perhaps. Or to watch in case the ship decided to do something all of a sudden now that they’d taken the…the colt. He really couldn’t say one way or another. He just quietly stared out.
Amber Grain was sitting on the couch in the center of the room, still cradling the colt in her arms. He’d calmed down by now, and idly reached his hooves up to touch her face and chest as he stared up at her with his crystalline gaze, breathing in and out in audible rasps, as though he had a sore or congested throat.
“Look at those eyes…” Amber cooed. “I’ve never seen any blue like his before…” She frowned. “He’s breathing a little funny…I hope that’s just from the smoke back there…wonder what this could be?…” Amber turned the little crystal at the colt’s neck over in her hoof. It looked to her like a little icicle, with a flattened-diamond shape at one end, bearing a symbol that looked a little like an S.
Cornstalk numbly turned away from the window, working up enough physical energy to raise a hoof and rub the back of his neck. “Uh…I’ll see about getting some hooves to help me drag the, uh…the thing out from the field tomorrow. And then after that we can…y’know, find somepony to take him…”
Amber lifted her head up. “…you want to turn him in?”
Cornstalk blinked. “N-no, I mean…well, somepony’s probably gonna come looking for him…heck, for all we know that thing could’ve been some magic student’s experiment up in Canterlot, or…or some space program thing…”
Amber shook her head. “That wasn’t one of ours. You saw it just as well as I did.”
Cornstalk was silent for a moment. “Well we…we still should call someone…like, maybe somepony up in Canterlot–“
“We can’t,” Amber suddenly blurted out, quickly and loudly enough that Cornstalk actually flinched in mild surprise. “We…we can’t. For goodness’ sake, Cornstalk, look at him. He’s just a foal. If they knew what he really is, who knows what they’d do with him? Or to him?”
“Oh come on…” Cornstalk replied, shaking his head. “You really think a pony like Princess Celestia would see a kid get hurt like that?”
“It’s not Celestia I’m worried about,” Amber answered.
“Well…” Cornstalk huffed. “Well, what do you want to do with him? It’s not like we can…can…”
Amber didn’t answer. She just looked him right in the eye, passively but firmly.
Slowly, Cornstalk began to shake his head. “…no…uh-uh, no ma’am…”
“Cornstalk.”
“No.”
“Honey.”
“Ambie–”
“He’s all alone. We’re the only ones who saw him come down. If we don’t take care of him, who will?”
“Ambie, that’s exactly why I suggested that we–”
“I am not turning him over to the government, Princess Celestia notwithstanding.”
“A-Ambie, we can’t take care of him, he’s–”
“A colt. A little colt. Cornstalk, look at him.” Amber adjusted the colt in her lap. “If we’d just found him crawling around on the side of the road and had no idea how he’d gotten there, would you be as hesitant to help him as you are now?”
“I–”
“Don’t bother. You and I both know the answer. You wouldn’t be. You’d drop everything and go to help him. Because you know what the right thing to do is.”
“I-I…” Cornstalk huffed. It was time to put the hoof down. “Alright. Ambie, I know things have been tough for us what with–”
And suddenly Amber’s gaze turned into a glare trained on him narrow as a knife’s edge. “Cornstalk, I hope to Faust you’re not going to say what I think you’re about to say.”
Cornstalk recoiled. Suddenly, putting the hoof down seemed like a darn fool thing to do.
The colt in Amber’s lap whimpered, and she broke off the glare to return her focus to him, cradling him gently and whispering to him.
Cornstalk watched them for about a minute, before he sighed in defeat and slowly took a seat on a chair opposite the couch. “…you’re right. That was wrong of me. I’m sorry. I’m just…”
Amber looked back up at him, her gaze softening again.
“…I’m scared, Ambie. I…I’m still trying to get over what happened back there on the road and now…it’s just–”
“A lot,” Amber finished. “I know. It is for me too.”
“…I don’t know if I can do it. I wanted to be a father for so long and we spent all that time dreaming, and now there is a foal and…and just how he got here…I don’t know…”
“Cornstalk, I wanted to be a mother for just as long. I’m just as frightened as you are. I don’t know if I can do it either, especially with a colt like this one…but we have to try. For his sake. We’re here and we can help him. You don’t just pass a chance to help somepony when you can.”
Cornstalk sat quietly.
“Come here,” Amber said, patting the space next to her.
Cornstalk paused a moment longer, then stood and trotted over to sit next to her. Amber took her hoof in his as she went on.
“I know you’re scared and confused…but you and I both know that you’re bigger than that. When it matters most, you’ve always known the right thing to do. It’s always been your best quality…and it’s why I fell in love with you. Because no matter what happens, not matter what life will throw at you, you know what you believe is right…and I know you do right now.”
Cornstalk heard the colt squeak from Amber’s lap. He looked down and saw the little foal reaching out towards him with his little hooves, staring up at him with his wide blue eyes. Slowly, carefully, he reached out a foreleg of his own, allowing the colt to wrap his own forelegs around his hoof in a little hug, laying his small head against Cornstalk’s foreleg. He felt the fur of the colt’s muzzle brushing against his as he nuzzled the foreleg, and felt his warmth against his own. Gradually, Cornstalk felt himself beginning to relax as he watched the colt hug his hoof.
“See?” he heard Amber say. “He even likes you.”
Cornstalk chuckled softly. A part of his mind was surprised that he did…but not a big enough part for him to care. “It, uh…looks like he does…”
He let the colt hug his hoof for a minute longer before gently settling him back into Amber’s arms. “…guess we can put him in the crib we built a while back. Should be comfortable enough in there.”
Amber nodded. “Plenty of blankets we can fill it up with. I’ll put him to sleep.”
“You sure?”
“You brought us all the way home with a half-broken cart, you deserve some rest.”
“So do you.”
“I’ll be fine, Cornstalk. Besides…” She carefully stood up, holding the colt to her chest with one foreleg. “It’ll give me time to think of what we could call him.”
“You sure there isn’t a name written on that, uh…that crystal there or whatever it is?” Cornstalk asked.
“It doesn’t look like it,” Amber replied, taking another look at the crystal at the colt’s neck. “I mean, maybe this symbol on the back is one in…whatever language they write in where he’s from.”
“Probably couldn’t read it for ourselves anyway…” Cornstalk acquiesced. “Well…when you think of something, let me know.”
“I will. First thing.” She adjusted the colt in her arm as she took him to the stairs, resuming her soft cooing as the two ascended up to the second floor.
Cornstalk quietly watched them go upstairs. He did not follow them up right away, not even to go back to the bedroom. He stayed down in the living room for a while longer, going back and forth from slowly pacing back and forth, staring blankly at the floor as he lost himself in thought, to going to the window again and staring blankly out through that, and then starting over. It was half an hour later when he finally willed himself up the stairs to his bed.
He didn’t fall asleep easily. He tossed and turned for a while, struggling to get his mind to stop reeling. It was difficult, but eventually, he finally found himself drifting into a deep, tired, and mercifully dreamless sleep.
It was well after dawn when he awoke the next morning. Ordinarily he’d have been up sooner to start the day’s chores, but the previous night’s events had well and truly exhausted him. The first thing he did after willing himself out of bed was to go to the guest room across the hall to check on Amber and the colt.
Amber Grain was sitting leaned against the side of the little crib the two of them had put together weeks earlier. He saw there were bags under her eyes; she didn’t look like she’d gotten much sleep either. The colt, on the other hoof, was wide awake. From the safety of the crib, he was facing towards the window on the far side of the room, where the morning sun was creeping over the horizon and bathing the room in the soft light of dawn. The colt was reaching out towards the window with his little forelegs, giggling and rolling around on the sheets and pillows like a cat, and in the light of the rising sun, his tan fur seemed to have an almost golden glow.
At Cornstalk’s approach, Amber turned to look at him in the doorway. Though her face was tired, she managed a soft smile.
“I think I know what I want to name him…”
“I suppose it sounds a little sappy…” Amber Grain said with a shrug. “But it just felt…right, I guess. Like it fit him.”
“Oh, no, it doesn’t sound sappy at all. I think it’s sweet,” Fluttershy replied reassuringly. “So…what happened with the ship? Where is it now?”
Cornstalk took up the question. “Well…about that…that next day after he came to us, we got the first snow of the winter season. And I mean snow. Blanketed the whole area around here white. We ended up hunkering down here in the house and taking care of things here for days afterward. Mostly looking after Dawning, now that we’d settled on keeping him. It was…I want to say a week before it finally cleared up enough that I was able to make the trip back out to the crash site. I knew there was no way I could bring that ship home myself, of course, I just wanted to check back on it. But when I got there…” He paused. “…it was gone.”
“Gone?”
“Eyup. Vanished without a trace. I looked through that whole area trying to find it. And it wasn’t like I’d forgotten where we’d left it in the field, or that it was buried too deep for me to see. It’d had to have snowed about two stories to have fully covered it, what with the way it was shaped and how it was jutting up and all. But it was just plain gone. Couldn’t find any tracks or signs that anypony else had been to it, though the snowfall didn’t help with making anything stick out. And eventually, I gave up looking for it before the next round of blizzard hit. We haven’t seen hide nor hair of that ship since then. All we managed to keep from it besides Dawning was that little crystal he was wearing.”
“Who do you think could’ve taken it?”
Cornstalk shrugged. “We don’t know. Had a couple thoughts, but no real evidence. And if it was somepony from around here, well…we didn’t want to go flinging false accusations. Especially not when it’d mean outing our little colt.”
“But that first snow of the season did bring its blessings, too,” Amber said. “Gave us enough time to figure out a cover story. So by the time the weather let up enough for folks to start coming by to check in on us, well…our little Dawning Hope was a poor lost orphan left out in a basket near our home, and we just never found who put him there.” She paused. “So not really a lie, just…leaving out a few details here and there.”
“Did he know he was adopted from the start?” Fluttershy asked.
Cornstalk and Amber exchanged a glance. “…well…no,” Cornstalk answered finally, with a hint of shame in his voice. “We, uh…didn’t tell him until much later. And much too late…but, uh, that’s later in the story, so…”
Fluttershy nodded, perplexed and worried, but resolving to keep moving forward. “So…how was Dawning? Was it hard raising him?”
“No more so than we expected raising a child would be,” Amber answered with a slight chuckle. “Though, we did have our early worries. That rasp in his breath lingered for a couple more days after we first found him, but it eventually went away and his breathing’s been normal ever since. When he started trying to walk for the first time, he had a harder time with it than most. Kept going head over heels, like he was trying to push himself up way too hard. But he got the hang of it after a while. Just his body adjusting to our world’s environment, I guess.”
“There was the flu he caught that once, too,” Cornstalk added.
“Oh right, there was that,” Amber nodded. “He caught the flu when he was around three. It was the first time he’d ever been really sick, and all the time I kept thinking of that one story with the alien invaders who all died from disease, and I kept worrying his body wouldn’t be able to…well, luckily it didn’t come to that. In fact, he recovered from it very quickly, and he hasn’t been sick since.”
“We were always concerned about his health,” Cornstalk said. “Mostly we were just afraid that one day some doctor would pick up something that’d stick out as something a…well, a pony like the rest of us shouldn’t have or didn’t have. But as far as anypony else could see, Dawning was just a plain, ordinary earth pony colt.”
“And eventually, we were comfortable enough to send him to school when he got old enough,” Amber continued, nodding at Woven Light and Flax. “Which is where he ended up meeting Woven and Flax here for the first time.”
“We hit it off pretty quickly,” Woven said. “Dawning and Flax got to be close playmates, and me…well honestly, I think at first he was just fascinated by my magic.” She lit up her horn in a light-blue aura for a moment. “We don’t have too many other unicorns here in Smallville. He’d probably never seen real magic up until he met me.”
“I distinctly remember him blurting out ‘that’s pretty’ in the middle of class,” Flax snickered. Woven blushed, barely suppressing a little giggle of her own.
“Aww…that’s sweet,” Fluttershy said.
“Yeah…back in the day a lot of us thought he had a crush on her, we were sure of it.”
“Yeah…” The smile and blush faded from Woven’s face. “We did…”
“…well, anyway,” Amber said, taking up the story again. “For the next few years, life was pretty normal. Dawning went to school, helped with chores at home, and just kept on, well…fitting in. It’s strange. After a while, it was like we almost had forgotten where he’d come from. If you didn’t know the story, you’d have no idea there was anything different about him. He was just an ordinary, happy little colt, and everyone loved him.” She paused and sighed. “…and then came that day when he was eight…”
Cornstalk grunted as he eased himself toward the edge of the barn roof, turning his head to look down over his shoulder. A ladder was leaned against the side of the bar, extended to almost its full limit. Dawning Hope stood beside its base far below, looking up with his bright blue eyes from behind his the bangs of his black mane.
“Hey, Dawning!” Cornstalk called down. “Would you do me a favor and get me some more nails? I’m fresh out.”
“Sure, Pa!” The words were barely out of Dawning’s mouth before he’d gone bounding off.
“Just leave the box down by the ladder, okay?” Cornstalk called after him. By then, though, the colt was already out of sight. Cornstalk half-sighed, half-chuckled as he scooted himself back up to the middle of the barn roof, sitting down and lifting off his cap to wipe some sweat from his brow. Nothing really to do but wait until Dawning came skipping back.
He was always eager to help like that. Always had been from the moment he’d been old enough to pitch in where he could. Heck, they rarely had to ask him for anything, half the time he’d practically swoop on in. Sometimes they even needed to tell him there was something they didn't need help with. Like this job of fixing the barn roof; Cornstalk would let Dawning do stuff like get nails or a cup of water from Amber, but he sure wasn't going to actually let him up there like the colt had wanted. Cornstalk often wondered if it was just a natural trait or if they really were just doing a good job raising him.
Dawning had grown so much by now, it was hard to believe that that night in the field had been eight years ago now. It was almost like some strange, distant dream to Cornstalk and Amber by now. Like it never really happened.
Well, almost. Amber had her books of star charts and stories of UFOs she’d snatch up when she could, and her own telescope that she’d take into the backyard some nights and watch the stars.
Just in case.
But for Cornstalk’s own part, he honestly couldn’t really think of Dawning as an alien anymore. He couldn’t even really think of him as adopted. He was their son, and there was nothing more to it.
He sighed, shaking his head. And to think it’d been him who’d been the most opposed to taking him in at first–
“I got th’ nails, Pa!” Came Dawning’s half-muffled voice from beside him.
“Oh, thanks son, just in ti–”
Wait.
Cornstalk’s head snapped to the side. Dawning Hope was perched at the top of the ladder a few feet away, holding the box of nails from one corner between his teeth.
A jolt of terror surged through Cornstalk’s heart. “Dawning, stay right there, don’t move–”
Whether it was by surprise at Cornstalk’s tone or losing balance, there was no way to tell. All either of them knew was that in the next moment, Dawning’s hind legs had slipped and he began to fall backwards.
Off the ladder.
“NO!” Cornstalk shot a foreleg forward with a speed only a desperate father could muster, reaching out towards Dawning’s own flailing forelegs.
His hoof gripped something, but it wasn’t Dawning’s hoof. It was the top rung of the ladder. All he succeeded in doing was pulling himself forward towards the edge of the barn roof, so that he ended up with a good full view of Dawning’s little body falling down, down, all two stories down. So sudden and fast, and yet so seemingly slow to Cornstalk, like a film reel in slow motion. Every detail to see.
He never saw the colt hit the ground. He was already swinging himself around the other side of the ladder and practically sliding down it to the ground below, his mind in a frenzy. Nononono, not like this, oh Celestia not like this, it isn’t fair, it isn’t any damned fair!…
At last, after an instant of eternity, Cornstalk’s hooves touched the grass and dirt below, and he raced to the fallen body of his son. Dawning was lying on his back in the grass, forelegs tucked in close to his chest, panting for breath and eyes wide. The box of nails lay crumpled a few feet away, its contents scattered in the grass, glistening in the sunlight.
And as Cornstalk leaned over Dawning’s fallen form, looking him over, his crushing terror turned to confusion and bewilderment. There was no sign of blood anywhere. No sign of broken bones. Dawning was panting and trembling, and his heart was pounding…but that was all.
How…?
Dawning slowly turned his head towards his father, lip trembling. “…I-I’m sorry, Pa…”
Cornstalk reached out a foreleg, and Dawning held on to it as he slowly got back to his hooves. He stood perfectly.
Like nothing had happened.
“Are…are you hurt?…”
“Back aches…” Dawning muttered.
“But…but are you hurt?” Cornstalk repeated, feeling down Dawning’s sides and back. It didn’t feel like anything was broken or bruised, despite Dawning’s complaint.
He felt like he should be feeling relief, but he just couldn’t. It was impossible. Just plain impossible. A fall from that height should’ve killed him. At the very least broken his back and some ribs.
But it hadn’t.
How?
“…are you mad at me, Pa?” Dawning whimpered.
The way he asked it snapped Cornstalk out of his confusion. “N-no, no I’m not…” He reached down and pulled up his son into a tight but gentle embrace. “I’m just glad you’re okay…”
“You gonna tell Ma?”
“Uh…” Cornstalk paused to think that one over. On the one hoof, their son had just had a near brush with death falling from the barn roof, but on the other…he’d survived the fall. Not gotten lucky and caught himself, but flat out hit the ground and got back up with only a mild ache. Amber wasn’t a mare of weak constitution by any means; she’d been the one who leaped at the idea of caring for Dawning even if he’d dropped out of the sky…
But how in Tartarus do you tell somepony about something like this?
“You…you leave that to me, alright? And in the meantime…” He dropped his voice to a more stern tone. “Never do something like that again, understood?”
Dawning nodded quietly.
“Good boy. Now c’mon…help me pick all these nails back up…”
“He didn’t tell me right away,” Amber Grain noted.
“Well can you blame me?” Cornstalk replied in half-hearted defense. “I had no idea how to tell you at the time.”
“You didn’t tell me for three whole days afterward.”
“Pfft,” Cornstalk snorted. “It’s not like you didn’t find out eventually.”
Fluttershy, who’d begun tensing up again at the tale of the barn roof ordeal, relaxed a little at the two’s playful bickering. “So how did you find out, Mrs. Grain?”
Amber chuckled. “With a lot less of a fright than Cornstalk did, I’m happy to say, though…it was still quite the shock…”
“That…was…amazing!” Amber Grain declared, practically throwing the front door open and trotting in with an ecstatic smile. Cornstalk and Dawning Hope were already in the living room, the former standing from one of the couches to greet her as she came.
“I take it you had a good time?” Cornstalk smiled, giving Amber a kiss on the cheek.
“I did. Can you believe it? Eighty years since Hailstorm’s Comet last passed by Equus, the whole Starwatchers Society dreaming of catching a glimpse of it, and we finally got our big chance.”
“We were watching it too!” Dawning chirped excitedly. “Dad and I brought the telescope out into the backyard and we saw it from there!”
“Nice!” Amber stepped over to the couch and set her saddlebags down on one of the armrests. “I brought home pictures…from through the telescope, I mean, I–oops!” One of the bags slipped, the flap opening and spilling some of the contents onto the floor. One of these was a pen, which rolled underneath the couch.
“I got it, Ma,” Dawning immediately said, quickly ducking down and sticking one foreleg and as much of his muzzle as he could between the bottom of the couch of the floor, reaching for the fallen pen.
“Oh, uh, thank you Dawning…be careful there…”
“See any flying saucers while you were out?” Cornstalk asked. He said it like a joke and with a small laugh to match, but the question had something of a deeper meaning between the two of them by now.
Amber shook her head. “Nope. No little green ponies here–”
There was suddenly a loud creaking from behind Amber that startled both her and Cornstalk, and she turned around just in time to see the couch tilt over and fall on its back against the floor with a thud.
Dawning poked his head up, the pen held between his teeth. “I gah ich, Ma…wha?”
Amber Grain stared with wide eyes, jaw slack. Cornstalk’s eyes were wide as well, though not quite by as much, and his lips were instead pursed.
Slowly, Dawning turned his gaze towards the fallen couch, and upon seeing it he too jumped back in surprise, the pen dropping from his mouth. “Aagh! I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!”
Amber’s mouth opened and closed like a gasping fish as she raised a shaky hoof and pointed. “You…the couch…”
Dawning’s ears folded back. “I-it was an accident…I’m sorry…”
“No no no, I mean…how did you lift the whole couch?!”
“He fell off the barn roof three days ago,” Cornstalk suddenly blurted out, quickly turning his gaze away from his wife.
Amber spun around. “WHAT?!”
Dawning’s look of shame was replaced by confusion. “…Pa, didn’t you say you were gonna tell her about that?”
“I was going to…” Cornstalk murmured.
“He fell off the roof?!”
“And walked away from it without a single scratch!” Cornstalk fired back. “I…I was just trying to figure out–”
“Our son can throw couches and take a fall from the bucking barn roof and you didn’t think to tell me?!”
“Well how am I supposed to tell you about something like that?!”
Almost simultaneously, the two paused, their stress fading and faces calming as they turned back to Dawning. The young colt’s ears were fully flattened back, head lowered and all but crouching on the floor.
“…is this wrong…?”
The two glanced at each other again, then back at Dawning, shaking their heads.
“No, of course it’s not…” Amber told him.
“Not one little bit,” Cornstalk agreed. “Heck, with the barn I’m relieved you can…y’know…”
“We’re not mad, Dawning,” Amber went on, bending down to look Dawning in the eyes. “Really, we’re not.”
“But this isn’t normal, isn’t it?” Dawning asked. “I…I’m not–”
“No. Stop right there,” Cornstalk told him, gently but firmly as he came alongside Dawning and put a hoof around his shoulders. “This isn’t something wrong with you, it’s…it’s a talent, Dawning, think of it that way.”
Dawning’s ears raised a slight bit, his eyes brightening a little. “Like…that kind of talent?”
“It…might very well be. We don’t know for sure…but we won’t at all if you don’t see just how much you can do, now won’t we?”
Dawning paused, thinking that over. “So it’s okay for me to keep using, uh…” He held up his hooves. “…this?”
Cornstalk nodded. “I mean, just as long as you’re careful.”
Dawning’s eyes lit up. “Can…can I show my friends at school?”
Cornstalk’s smile dissipated, and he shared another glance with Amber. They both were thinking the same thing.
“Uh…maybe we should hold off on letting anypony else know just yet,” Amber suggested. “Just for now.”
“I…yeah, probably would be for the best for now,” Cornstalk agreed.
“Oh…” Dawning’s face fell slightly.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Cornstalk lifted Dawning’s chin back up with a hoof. “We’re not asking you to repress anything, and it won’t be forever. You’ve pretty clearly got a gift. Or, gifts, I should say. Just…your mother and I think that we just need some time to figure out exactly how strong you are, that’s all.”
Dawning paused again. “…okay.”
“There you go, son,” Cornstalk said, patting the colt on the shoulder. “I’ll see about setting aside some things for you to try pushing and lifting and all that tomorrow. In the meantime, uh…you wanna help us set the couch back up?”
Cornstalk sighed, shutting his eyes and rubbing his forehead with a hoof. “We shouldn’t have had him hide it…things would’ve ended up working better for him if we hadn’t...”
Fluttershy felt a little apprehensive about what he meant by that, but she knew they’d get to that part soon enough. “You..you meant well. I’m sure you did the best you could.”
Cornstalk’s only response was a silent biting of his lip.
“We did our best to help him hone what he had at the time,” Amber continued. “Sometimes we’d set up things for him to test his strength on. Sometimes when there was something big that needed lifting or pulling he’d offer to help with it, just to see if he could. We encouraged him to try to keep it at home where we could help and where nopony else could see, but…that didn’t always work out.”
“I mean, I doubt he could’ve kept it completely hidden, could he?” Fluttershy turned to Woven and Flax. “Did either of you ever notice anything?” She asked them.
“There were…yeah, in hindsight there were some signs along the way…” Woven nodded.
“Definitely,” Flax added. “Just most of the times that probably were him accidentally using his powers in the open were just flukes, and we’d always chalk it up to accidents or something. Like, I remember this one time where we were trying buckball…”
“I don’t know about this,” Dawning murmured as he sat in the low-cut grass of the field.
“Aw um on, ‘awning…agh…” Flax stopped, dropping the rubber ball from his teeth into the crook of one foreleg. “Aw, come on Dawning, there’s nothing to it. I just wanna see how good we are if we’re gonna have a buckball team at school, is all.”
“And at the very least you’d be helping me practice catching,” Woven Light added, holding up a wooden bucket in her shimmering aura. “Besides, this is all just for fun between the three of us. Doesn’t matter if you’re a pro at it or not.”
“Exactly,” Flax agreed. “I mean…nopony’s gonna force you to be part of the team if you don’t want it.”
“I know…” Dawning replied.
“So what’s the hold up?”
Dawning quietly kicked a grass blade back and forth for a moment, before finally shrugging. “Oh alright, I’ll give it a try.”
“That’s the spirit!”
As Woven stepped back across the field, holding the bucket up above her head, Flax took up position between and to the right of her and Dawning, holding the ball ready in one hoof. “Alright, Dawning, just give it all you got. You ready?”
“I guess…” Dawning nodded, turning around and looking over his shoulder, raising a hind leg and preparing to kick.
“Okay, three…two…”
Flax threw the ball to the ground. It bounced up again into the air and Dawning’s back leg snapped out–
And the next thing the three kids knew the ball had become a red blur that streaked through the air and smashed right through the bottom end of the bucket, leaving behind an almost perfectly circular hole and sending splinters raining all around Woven, who cried out in surprise. The ball itself struck a bush about fifty feet behind Woven, and the poor shrub seemed to practically explode into splinters and twirling leaves on impact.
Flax and Woven stared up at the bucket, then at Dawning, and then back at the bucket again, and then back to Dawning again, eyes wide and mouths hanging wide open.
“…holy buck!” Flax finally gasped out.
Dawning was cringing, ears flattened back and face wracked with embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to hit it that hard, I…I-I’ll go get it, I…” Shakily, he darted around the other two ponies and quickly made his way to the remains of the bush, poking through the broken vegetation in search of the ball.
Woven and Flax watched him silently, still in shock. “Geeez…” Woven whispered, staring down at the remains of the bucket still in her aura. “I…I was ready to tell him that he was just underestimating himself, but I guess he was…like, under-underestimating himself…”
“Dadgum, that kick…” Flax murmured, shaking his head.
Dawning was just making his way back, slowly trudging and sheepishly holding a torn, shredded mass of red rubber. “Um…about the ball…”
Woven Light couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, needless to say, even if he could have had the chance to be a champion buckball kicker, he didn’t really feel like trying too many sports after that.”
“Heck, that was around the same time he got interested in writing,” Flax added.
“I guess I don’t blame him for that,” Fluttershy replied. “So, um…I take it he could do a lot, even back then?”
“It wasn’t all at once,” Amber continued. “At first thought he was just strong and tough, but it just kept coming as he grew. He just kept getting stronger and stronger as the years went by…and then every once in a while there’d be something new he could do. By the time he was nine, he could jump clear over the barn if he wanted to. When he was ten he could run faster than any other pony I’ve ever heard of. When he was eleven, his senses started getting a lot stronger. Hearing, sight…some of the hardest times we ever had was helping him focus his senses so he wouldn’t overwhelm himself.”
“He started talking about all the different things he could see and hear then,” Cornstalk added. “Colors and light that we couldn’t see, sounds going on all around that none of the rest of us ever hear…things he’d try his best to describe, but he always felt like he never fully could.”
Fluttershy nodded. “He told me a little about how much he could see and hear back in Manehattan. It…honestly sounds overwhelming even now. Um, what about his, uh…his heat vision, when did that come in?”
“Hoo boy…” Murmured Flax. Cornstalk, Amber, and Woven all exchanged looks and chuckled a little.
“What? What happened?” Fluttershy pressed.
“Well…” Amber said, a little amused smile creeping along her lips. “Let’s just say that that started up around the same time other things were changing about him…”
Amber Grain was at the kitchen sink washing dishes when she heard the front door–quite literally–crash open, and heard Dawning’s voice from within the living room. As surprising as it normally would’ve been for most other ponies, Amber had gotten somewhat used to it by now. Between Dawning’s strength and his speed, he sometimes would run right through a door every once in a blue moon.
What did surprise her when it all happened, however, was that for one it was the middle of day when Dawning should have been in school. And for another, Dawning sounded very stressed. In fact, he sounded like he was in pain.
“Ma…water…need water!”
Amber spun around, heart jumping at the sound of his tone. “Dawning, what’s–”
Before she could even finish, Dawning came bounding into the kitchen. As he pushed past her, Amber caught a glimpse of his face. His teeth were clenched, sweat ran down the sides of his cheeks, but what startled her most were his eyes; they were tightly shut, but even beneath the lids she could make out a bright red glow.
She had already staggered back on instinct when Dawning stuck his head under the still pouring faucet and into the half-filled sink. She had a split second to catch the moment when he opened his eyes beneath the stream of water, his eyes burning as bright as the Sun itself–
And then suddenly there was an explosion of hissing steam, and Amber screamed as she was knocked backwards through the doorway of the kitchen by a blast of warm vapor.
The cloud of steam began to dissipate almost as soon as it erupted, and Amber ran back into the now-humid kitchen to Dawning. He was sitting on his haunches, panting for breath, and his mane, usually kept with bangs hanging around his face, had been blown backwards over his head. The red glow in his eyes fading away and allowing their natural crystalline blue color to return. The kitchen sink beside him had become a smoking, collapsed slag of stainless steel and ceramic remains.
Amber grabbed Dawning by the shoulders. “Dawning! Are you alright, what happened?!”
“I-I’m sorry…” Dawning stammered apologetically.
“Never mind the sink, Dawning, are you alright?!”
“I-I don’t know what happened!” Dawning protested. “W-we were in biology class and I was sitting next to Woven and all of a sudden I just felt…hot all over and my eyes started to feel like they were going to explode, and…and I had to get out of there, I didn’t think I–”
“Whoa whoa whoa,” Amber interrupted, raising a hoof. “…you were sitting next to Woven when this started?”
Dawning shakily nodded. “Y-yeah…”
Amber already felt like she had a feeling she knew where this was going. “And…you were in what class again?”
“Biology. We were learning about, um…uh…” Dawning trailed off, eyes widening as a look of realization settled in across his face. “…o-oh…”
Amber took a deep breath, held it for around three seconds, and let it out in a long, slow, whistling exhale.
“Oh my…” Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle as she said it.
Amber still had that look of amusement. Woven covered her face with one hoof, but Fluttershy could still see her blushing cheeks and barely repressed snicker. Flax wasn’t even trying to hide it.
Cornstalk just crossed his arms, biting his lip. “It wasn’t that funny…”
“Oh, shush,” Amber playfully chided, lightly knocking his shoulder with a hoof. “Anyway…Dawning kept growing stronger and stronger over the years. At times it seemed like there’d be no end to it. And then one day…”
“Dawning!” Cornstalk called out the back door one evening. “Come in for dinner!” He knew Dawning would come right away…partially from the young stallion’s perpetual love for his mother’s cooking, and partly because no matter where he was on the farm, he’d hear the call and be there in almost an instant. His abilities certainly had their benefits.
“Ma, Pa!” Came Dawning’s voice from just outside. “Come out here, quick!”
Amber Grain poked her head out from the kitchen doorway. “Dawning, are you alright?” She called.
“I’m fine, just come outside and look!”
Cornstalk and Amber exchanged glances and shrugged, the two trotting outside to the back porch. The sun was just beginning to touch the horizon, bathing the clouds around in fiery yellows and oranges against a backdrop of rosy red that faded into purple, then blue as it stretched up into the sky. There was a small wisp of a chill breeze to offset the lingering heat of the day, making waves in the vast fields of crops beyond.
Dawning Hope was nowhere to be seen.
Cornstalk blinked. “…Dawning?”
And then from directly above, in a voice that they knew right away was spoken through a broad smile: “Look up.”
As one the two parents looked up…and promptly froze in shock.
They’d seen Dawning Hope take falls and injuries that would kill or at least maim most other ponies. They’d seen him lift boulders and whole trees and heavy machinery like they weighed nothing. They’d seen him race across the fields with enough speed to kick up a veritable whirlwind. They’d seen him light fires with but a glance. They’d heard his flourished descriptions of all that he could see and hear.
Nothing, however, could have ever prepared them for the sight of Dawning Hope floating in mid-air fifteen feet above their heads, mane and tail billowing in the breeze, and wearing one of the biggest, most gleeful smiles they could remember seeing on his face.
“Holyyyy…” Cornstalk whispered.
Amber stammered, “D-Dawning, you’re–”
“Flying!” Dawning cried happily. “I know, I can’t believe it either, but I’m doing it!” He stretched out his forelegs and, as though pushing against thin air, shot forward, flying in circles overhead and laughing.
“How…how did you…?” Cornstalk half-asked.
“I don’t know! I was just jumping around in the back fields and–” He suddenly arced upwards, rocketing up into the air with the speed of a bullet, up to where the two couldn’t make out what he was saying. A second later he came floating back down. “…thought it was crazy, I just didn’t want to land and...” He sped off again, this time to the right, and soon enough came swooping back over. “…no idea how I’m doing it but…oh Celestia, this is awesome!”
Dawning landed, somewhat clumsily with a thud and a small amount of dirt kicked up from beneath his hooves. His mane was a mess and he was sweating and panting like a dog, but he was grinning ear to ear. “…Ma, Pa, I can fly. I can really fly!”
He was just so excited that it was practically contagious, and Cornstalk and Amber were sharing his smile in seconds. “Dawning, that’s…that’s great!” Cornstalk said enthusiastically.
“That’s amazing, that’s amazing!” Amber marveled.
“I KNOW, RIGHT?!” Even after landing, Dawning was practically bouncing, jumping and spinning around in clear euphoria. “I…I…”
He began to slow down, still turning around in circles, looking over his shoulder at his body. The broad grin began to leech away and the vibrant, happy energy with it. Suddenly, Dawning Hope was regarding himself with a look of disappointment.
And then Cornstalk and Amber realized that he was looking at his flank.
His still bare flank.
“…Dawning? Honey?” Amber gently probed.
Dawning sighed and murmured, “Nothing…never mind.”
“Dawning, what’s–” Cornstalk started.
“Just forget it,” Dawning huffed, abruptly turning away and trotting off with head hung and ears folded back.
“Dawning, wait!” Amber called after him.
Dawning didn’t answer. He kept walking, slowly heading back out into the fields.
Amber sighed. She turned to Cornstalk, and had just opened her mouth to speak when Cornstalk preemptively answered.
“I’ll talk to him. Just give us a few minutes,” he said, following after their son.
Amber gave him a small smile as she watched him go. “Good stallion.”
With how slow Dawning’s pace was, it didn’t take Cornstalk too long to catch up. Dawning barely reacted to his presence, only twitching his ears a slight bit as his father came up along side him. He stayed on his aimless, forward direction, eyes aimed down at the soil at his hooves.
“So…” Cornstalk prodded gently. “You seemed pretty happy about this flying business just a minute ago. What happened?”
A small sigh escaped Dawning’s lips. “…I thought I’d finally get my cutie mark today.”
Cornstalk wasn’t surprised. In fact, he’d expected to hear that. “I see.”
Just up ahead was a stack of timber that Cornstalk had left out for one of his repair projects. As the two passed them, Dawning hopped up on one, walking across its length as he continued. “I…I just don’t understand it, Pa. There’s so much I can do now, it’s…it’s almost ridiculous. I can lift things even a dragon couldn’t, I can run faster than a pegasus can fly…”
Dawning reached the end of the log, but instead of jumping back down, he floated forward, his hooves gently paddling at the air as though he were still walking. “And I…I know we’ve talked a lot about everything I can see and hear, but…Faust above, it never feels like I can get it across what it’s like. All the colors I can’t even put names to, all the sounds I can’t even describe…how it feels when you look at a pony or a group of ponies, and you see and hear every part of them just…just warm and flowing with life and glowing like stars…” He sighed. “I wish you could see it…I wish everypony could see it.”
Cornstalk quietly nodded along. “We’ve talked about that, yeah…”
Dawning slowly lowered himself back down to the ground, resuming a proper walk. “And school…I’ve been doing pretty good in college so far. Look at me, I’m two years off from graduation, I’ve been loving learning journalism and writing and reporting and all that, and…and…” He trailed off, stopping and sitting down in the soil, eyes drifting downward again.
“Yes?”
Dawning’s gaze raised back up to meet his father’s. “…I can do so much, and I have no idea what any of it is for. Every other pony I’ve ever known or went to school with already has their cutie mark by now, they know what they’re doing with their lives…Woven has her magic, Flax has his family’s farm…even Briar Patch's gotten his and he’s a total d…” He trailed off for a moment. “…a jerk.”
“Well…Dawning, it’s like we’ve talked about before, not everypony gets their cutie mark at the same time or the same age. It doesn’t matter what ponies like Briar say. It’s different for everypony, sometimes they just bloom late–”
“Pa, I’m twenty one,” Dawning snapped. “I’m an adult now and I still don’t have one! That’s not me being a ‘late bloomer’, that’s something wrong with me!”
Cornstalk didn’t immediately reply, instead waiting for Dawning to say anything further. He didn’t. He simply sighed again and let his shoulders sag.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, it’s just…there’s so much, so so much I can do, but…I don’t know where I’m going with it. It’s like I’m just going through the motions, and when I run out of motions to go through…I don’t know…”
Cornstalk came close to Dawning and put a foreleg around his shoulders, gently drawing him into a side-hug. He took a breath, thinking over his words.
“Dawning, I…I know you probably don’t think it helps, me saying that this is something everypony goes through–”
“I’m not just everypony, Pa,” Dawning interrupted. “I’m different. That’s something we’ve been dealing with for years now.”
“I know. But take all your powers away and you’re still a pony just like everyone else. Believe me, I know what it feels like to feel lost. Like you’re just staggering through life not knowing where you belong in it. Like you may never know.”
He reached over with a hoof and gently lifted Dawning’s chin, enough to lightly prod him into looking at him face-to-face. “But trust me, Dawning, that’s not gonna last forever. You have so much to offer this little old world, and a big enough heart to keep it going straight. It may be tomorrow, it may take longer. But there’s gonna be a day where you wake up one morning and you realize you know what you’re here for, what you want to do with your life.”
Dawning’s ears were perking up bit by bit, the gloominess in his eyes fading away.
“And when that day comes for you…” Cornstalk smiled. “…son, you’re gonna soar.”
The edges of Dawning’s lips rose in a small, eased smile, his body relaxing as the tension dissipated. “…thanks, Pa.”
Cornstalk patted him on the back. “Anytime. Now come on inside, dinner’s getting cold…”
“Well, at least he did end up getting his cutie mark after all, right?” Fluttershy asked.
Nopony answered.
Her face fell. “…o-oh…I thought…I know Dawning Hope has one though…”
“Let me guess: a typewriter?” Amber asked.
Fluttershy blinked. “How’d you know that?”
“Mentioned it in his letters,” Cornstalk explained. “The mark you’ve been seeing him with is a fake, he paints it on.”
“So…he never got one after all?”
Cornstalk shook his head. “We…hoped that he really was just a late bloomer, but…he never did. Wherever he came from, whatever kind of pony he is, I think they just don’t get marks the same way we do.”
“Poor Dawning…” Fluttershy was starting to seriously wonder just how lonely Dawning must have felt. First these seemingly inexplicable powers, and then not even being able to get a cutie mark like any other pony.
And all that she knew before he’d even learned of how he’d truly come to Cornstalk and Amber Grain.
Which just left one question.
“…how did he finally find out the truth?”
A somber note crept into the body language of the gathered ponies, but most of all she saw it in Cornstalk’s eyes. There was a certain kind of sorrowful look in his eyes, something that took her a moment to put her hoof on.
Regret?
Amber Grain took in a breath. “It was two years ago. By that time, the kids had graduated and Dawning was working at the Smallville Gazette. Things were…going well.” She sighed. “The Nightmare Night festival that year. That’s where it all went sideways…”
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Hey there. Thanks immensely for getting this next chapter up. I really appreciate the effort going into the exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Really liked the discussion on the backstory of how Dawning's adopted parents found him (and the brief argument concerning the fear and parental instinct) as well as the early days raising Dawn (particularly the couple of very brief bouts of illness, the first meetings with Dawning's friends, discoveries of assorted powers and his inability to get a cutie mark [the last of which is something Misty will be able to vouch for in a thousand years, even if the reason is under different circumstances]). Fluttershy's understandable reactions were well done too.
Definitely looking forward to more of this.
And, on another note that just occurred to me, the very fact that this chapter has been released just a few days before Superman's 85th birthday is another beautiful detail, even if that fact is just a VERY happy coincidence.
Oh man, now I wished this back story was its own story because it’s really good! Now, I wonder how the show affected Dawning like with Nightmare Moon? Does Luna and Discord know about Dawning and have been keeping it secret for him 🤔 very mysterious! Can’t wait!
....... Cliff hanger...... CLIFF HANGER!!!! THERE WILL BE BLOOD, CLIFF HANGER! MARK MY WORDS!!!! There will be blood.
i.ytimg.com/vi/p_b7x1knWmg/hqdefault.jpg
You'll believe an Earth Pony can fly!
Since Lex still has his ship, the most Dawning's parents would be able to tell him would be he may have came from another world.
But without ever getting access to the ship, Dawning can't find out anything about his birthworld.
Will there be any other ponified members of the Justice League showing up in the future? Just curious…
What a nice surprise in seeing an update of this! And right before the 85th birthday of the Man of Steel too!
Really hope to see more soon. Want to know how Dawning finally found out and what will happen with Lex, the rest of the Mane Six and others.
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Right now I'm keeping my plans Supermane-focused. If anyone else is in the cards, it's going to be much later down the line.
Inspirational
11599034 As far as equivalents go:
Bruce Mane/Bat Stallion has already been covered in the comments.
Marvel Mare would either be a new alicorn from wherever Celestia and Luna originally came from, or one of the princesses slumming after they retired.
Hawk Cat - A female griffon in armour and with a mace that is made of metal that can disrupt and absorb magic and use it to boost stength, speed and toughness.
The Sleipnir Stallion Stalker - An alien super-changeling from the planet Sleipnir, with intangibility and telepathy powers as well as shapeshifting.
That's all I've got, as Fillisecond and Radiance pretty much cover the rest of the Justice League of Equestria.
While I know Twilight is the one in charge now, do you plan on having Celestia and Luna show up?
I find Lex truly to be an odd pony that, in a world of magic wearing miracles can happen, he just dismisses the alicorns moving the sun and moon to focus on science and technology.
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It's less him dismissing it and more that his pitch is that science and technology is more accessible to the common pony, whereas magic like the alicorns or Starlight Glimmer and such only happens with the very few. And in an era where Equestria has been attacked and barely rescued numerous times by now, the idea of it not having to rely on the Magic of Friendship™ to save the day by the skin of its teeth all the time is looking more and more attractive to some.
That and Lex just has his own issues of jealousy and lust for power and whatnot, and just found an opportune niche to slip himself into to meet those demands and get in good graces.
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The only problem with that 🥸, was being able to fool someone who had regularly contact with the both identities, and a well-gained reputation as a perceptive, intelligent reporter.
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I love the continuities where Superman flat out tells Lex he could have been the better man, had his ego and pettiness not gotten the best out of him.
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The Clark disguise works better than most give it credit for, but I’ll admit that I think it’s better when Lois is in the know and he’s not hiding it from here. Not even just for the disguise angle, just on a character level I find Clark and Lois much more enjoyable as a couple when he’s opened up to her about his dual identity.
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Still, the whole thin is rather silly. Especially if they ever apply facial recognition software to the problem.
That said, I do wonder had it been Superman wearing the glasses and Clark going without... I'm betting that the populace of DC's universe would still not be able to put 2 & 2 together about him!
Take notes, Janes Gunn. This is how you do a Superman origin from the basics building up. Honestly I always found the formative times in Smallville more enthralling than a lot of the Metropolis action, which is probably one of the reasons we got a whole series chiefly dedicated to that. The perspective following Amber and Cornstalk through most of it worked very well for itself to show how people would perceive the sort of events going on around them. I especially like the initial divide of opinion between what to do about the situation literally given to them, how Amber instantly latches on to the terms life has dealt out whilst Cornstalk takes a little bit of time but it happens very naturally.
To make a very strange comparison, this is like a benevolent version of Brightburn as much as it is a Superman origin story, and I mean that in the sense of how that movie mostly followed the adoptive parents even if it was played for horror. I also like it how the situations involving the powers manifesting (or the very least revealing themselves) are relatively mundane. Falling from a great height with durability, enhanced strength when absentmindedly picking up an obstacle, etc.
The heat vision one really got a loud chuckle out of me and while personal control is definitely something our hero has no doubt drilled himself on rigidly, I would get a laugh out of that manifesting again a few times in a very low-key way. Dawning get a bit flustered and averting his gaze- across the street a flag pole turns a bit red hot
I CAUGHT THAT YOUNG MAN!
(1:25 if embed doesn't work)
The pacing is very well done and the separations of scene to scene is easy to follow. I never felt like there was just blank space being talked about in the times that the other characters chimed in felt very natural. By intention or not this answer might be very closely of a few of the MLP comics by IDW when they were telling recollections of what happened in the past with those being told the story interjecting every now and then.
There’s also some tantalizing bits of plot development on who all else in the town might have figured out a thing or two. It’s not directly stated but you could deftly take some of the implications as hints that perhaps this was a bit of an open secret within the town for some.
If there is any criticism I could give, and this would probably be more just a case of personal taste, I would have liked to see Dawning perhaps doing some more incognito heroics when he was younger and tie that to his powers. Not even necessarily doing it on purpose, but more he just couldn’t stop himself from stepping in to help others when the opportunity came. To borrow from an aspect of Man of Steel I liked, something like the schoolbus going into a river and maybe that being when a young Dawning’s strength awakened might’ve made for a very dynamic; if potentially pace disrupting sequence.
The emotional part still definitely hit very well and the disappointment of not having his mark yet despite his age and achievements is very palpable and very applicable. I’m seven years older than he is, completed college, got my degree, and I can still very firmly say that I really don’t know what I’m doing at times. The best advice I would give for anyone else in a similar situation is what I would give to our young hero here.
Keep moving forward, take care of yourself and others, and do what’s right. The rest, will figure itself out.
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It's kind of a recurring trend I've noticed over the various pieces of Superman media; Martha Kent always wants to take in little Kal right from the moment she lays eyes on him, whereas while Jonathan is usually the one who we see bonding with him the closest, he was ironically more reluctant to do so in the beginning.
Sadly I can't take full credit for that one. Smallville had a whole episode built around that joke. And Superman: Secret Origin took it further by having the Kents make Clark's glasses out of material from the ship to block his heat vision, precisely so he wouldn't accidentally fry anyone with it, through an emotional outburst or...otherwise. xD
If I could've done it without worrying about over-stuffing the chapter I would have. There was actually a scene I had planned but ultimately cut that would've taken place around the time of "A Canterlot Wedding", with Dawning discovering via x-ray vision that some of the ponies around town have been replaced by changelings...including Amber Grain. There would've been a brief scuffle between him and the Amber!changeling which would've gone about as well as you'd expect, leaving the changeling to go staggering off stammering about how "you aren't a pony either! What are you?!" as Dawning goes to alert the rest of the town. I'm half-tempted to do resurrect that idea in a short story after I'm finished with this main one here, but we'll see.
Thank you very much for the kind words! Reading your reviews is always a treat. :)
A little bit belated (blame my discovery of Mr Samual Streamer's Rimworld playthroughs and their staggeringly massive backlog), but as always excellent work.
I especially lke the part where Cornstalk doesn't tell Dawning he probably ought to let a cartload of his classmate die instead of revealing his powers and then walks off to die in an Wendigo attack instead of to safety...!
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Someone actually called my writing "art"...
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There are very few occasions where I'm invested enough to read a 100K+ words story in only a span of a few days. This is one of those rare occasions. Your writing style is fairly easy to visualise and every scene flows together really well. Nothing felt rushed and all characters in the story behave almost exactly to what you'd expect.
At first I was a little bit confused as to why supes wore a hood (ik this started out as a Batman story but still), then I just think of this as a different take on the character. A ponified, more secretive Superman. However, Lex connecting the effects of K643's (presumably kryptonite) radiation to supes' biology felt like a bit of a reach. Whether borne out of ingenuity or sheer desperation, I still can't picture how he came to that conclusion so suddenly.
I'd rate this story an overall 9,5/10.
I wonder when that crystal is going to show up again.
On a related note, have you had a chance to check out My Adventures with Superman? I've heard some pretty good things about it.
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Yup, I've been keeping up with it. It's really fun and adorable and I'm really enjoying it, like, I can hear the VAs for Clark and Lois as I write Dawning and Lucky now.
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Thank you so much! I actually feel like I've been struggling with writing lately, or at least writing as much and as quickly as I'd like, and feedback like this really helps with morale, so thank you very kindly. :)
Keeping Lex's intuition as non-spoilery as possible, it's less an outright conclusion and more a possible avenue to explore that occurred to him. He's not sure yet. There's reasons why he'd think that (in a loose comic book science sort of way), but I'll save that for its proper place down the line.
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Replace "Jimmy" with "Fluttershy," and you basically have a funnier version of his and Fluttershy's conversation in "Two and Two Makes...."
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I once stumbled upon maybe the end of Kill Bill where two characters are discussing superheroes and their alter egos. One character claims that unlike most superheroes, Superman's hero identity is his true identity and his civilian one is a constructed identity. I think most Superman fans argue the opposite because Clark as an everyman feels more real as a character than the very idealized Superman. However, what if the truth is somewhere near the middle?
The guy in Kill Bill argues that Superman was born an outsider to the human race he protects and that his identity as Clark forces him to hide everything that is different about him and pretend that he is just like everyone else when he is not. I believe the neurodivergent community refer to this act as masking, an action that I somehow have been doing for years without being aware of it, but enough about me, let's talk about Superman. Anyway, whenever Superman walks around as Clark Kent, he does everything he can to project that he is an unremarkable, mediocre everyman, which, as much as he'd like to be, is not who he is. However, he also isn't the confident, faultless ideal that he projects as Superman. He actually is as insecure and mild-mannered as he seems to be whenever he's not being Superman, and arguably, having to pretend that he isn't is just as exhausting as having to pretend that he is normal. So, if both Superman's identities are masks, then what is his true identity? Does he even have one? If so, is his true identity a mix of both his constructed identities?
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Bigger ego, actual. I mean, his ego is approximately as big as Rainbow's AND Trixie's COMBINED (possibly even slightly bigger).
But yeah. I could definitely see a version of Superman where Perry White was voiced by J.K Simmons. That might make for an amusing Casting Gag.
Here's to Dawning soaring.
Aww.
I like the insights into Dawning's past, it's a nice bit of super silliness. :3 Love discovering your powers at the worst possible times
Though Nightmare Night festival? ... Oh boy, wonder what fresh hell had happened there.