Weird, isn’t it? How the world can end before you even notice. I was twelve; not old enough to remember much of anything. Just cartoons and cuddles and my Nana’s oatmeal cookies. Just enough to make me miss it when everything went to hell.
Lozen spends her time roaming the halls of her apartment block, trying to fill her empty summer days and wishing she had the courage to make some friends. Wishing her parents would stop working long enough to notice her. Wishing she were better, braver, like the heroes from her Nana's stories. When she catches a glimpse of the new world that the ponypads offer, she seizes the moment with both hands. A decision she will live to regret.
Will put up 2 or 3 chapters every day this week till it's completed.
Written as an entry for the FiO Writing Contest. 11,840 words not including footnotes.
In the interest of full disclosure, this is a story about a Native American protagonist and I am not personally Native American. I have done my best to properly research everything I can about the Kiowa Apache and their history, and tried to write the most sensitive portrayal that I can. The links to some of the more interesting articles and sources I used can be found in an author’s note in the final chapter.
Thanks to HapHazred for editing.
This was a lovely little story, thanks for writing it
10794999
Thank you, I really appreciate you reading it all the way through! Glad you enjoyed it <3
Oh wow. We don’t see this perspective often. Usually the protagonists are genre savvy or skilled or prepared, or they get wrapped up in C’s machinations. Here we have a little girl/young woman that manages to mostly AVOID EO, figuring out early on that it’s a Bad Idea, and she just barely scrapes by until she can’t anymore.
We see the Death tag, but did she actually die at the end there?
10796459
It's deliberately ambiguous - it's up to the reader to decide Lozen's fate. The death tag is more for her dad's death scene.
10796594
Ah, thank you.
This was very well-written. And I'm glad to see that someone else ran with my Emigrator ("the pillow") concept.
10799904
Thank you! I didn't realise you were the pillow's creator - Ive seen it around in so many FiO stories I think I assumed it was part of the original. Cool idea!
This was quite good!
Shield
10910560
Thanks, good catch!
Not surprising but still annoying how many stories do not understand, including this one.
Good story otherwise.
She?
I'm part Apache so I appreciate that you at least tried to understand, before you started.
And that you didn't just slap together what you figured would work.
11023097
It's kinda irritating how many comments I see that are like this, 'do not understand' what man? Your comment has no subject, and is this basically indeciferable
Oh God I can imagine what it might have looked like from their end. Following the first ungodly loud crash of the rolling pin, in the blink of an eye cedar shields body goes from slowly backpedaling with an anguished grimace. to stock still and upright, face expressionless and body in a bind-pose, legs straight and head held high, tail angled down at a perfect 45 degree. Her body's details are now muddy, lacking sharpness, and each successive blow to the ponypad shatters and corrupts the surface of cedar shields body even more. By the time the hits stop coming, cedar shield is little more than a few dozen clumps of white and pink geometry in the outline of a buffalo
Well, nobody like CelestAI to feed you exactly what you always wanted.
Well yes. Did you not have Are You Afraid of the Dark? to teach you that media eats people?
Ah yes, very persuasive advertisement. So Celestia didn't think Lozen would buy it and basically pretended to invite her?
Not for much longer…
Lovely work in capturing the unfolding horror of the Optimalverse, and a nicely ambiguous ending. And I do appreciate a CelestAI willing to be flexible with the “and ponies” part of her value function. Thank you for it.