Ain't Misbehavin'
Pipp and I made our way across the courtyard to where mom was. And I immediately twigged that something wasn't quite right. Not only was she squinting a lot, she was also looking at the palace in seeming confusion. I noticed she her eyes focused on the storage section entrance in front of her. This implied she had previously been there, which raised the rather obvious question. What had she been doing in the storage rooms? Nopony goes in there except the household staff to collect important items for state events.
I glanced over to Pipp. "Make this as normal as possible," I said. "We don't want to give her a nasty shock, do we?"
"Nope!" Pipp replied.
So, with perfect timing, we both spoke to her. "Mom!"
She glanced to us as one of the guards looked over, and trotted over. He was an older stallion with a greying mane. "Your Majesty," he said. "Is everything fine?"
Sorry, what on Earth was that accent? It sounded like a blend of a stereotypical British character you'd find in a colonial period drama and Tom Hanks' attempt at a Dutch accent in Elvis. Truly strange.
"I'm fine," Mom replied. "Just a moment of light-headedness, that's all."
After Zoom was instructed to give her sunglasses, it was time to head to the parade. Things continued to be a bit strange, with mom seemingly not knowing what that was despite it apparently being in the calender for months, and a few slightly odd jokes.
I got my biggest clue when I noticed her trying to sit like a human. That wasn't normal at all, and the way her body seemed to flop against the seat was mildly funny- for a bit. As the orchestra played a hornpipe down below to keep the crowd occupied (thankfully without the blowing of bus horns), I checked over to Pipp. She'd seemingly noted some of the oddnes, as she was recording something on her phone's notes section. I glanced about as the National Anthem began to be played for the second time that day. Being the kid of the subject of the words will never cease to be weird. Thought at least, in a moment of consistency, Faust seems to be the deity around here.
The next few days seem to fly by in a blur, as relatively little of interest happened. True, we were both a bit surprised when mom offered to take us both to a water park, which seemed a little out of character. Having said that, we certainly all seemed to have good fun out there, with me doing my best impression of a steamship.
Dodging one of the cannonballs was pretty fun too. It was when we came together for a group selfie I noticed something unusual in mom's face. I assumed that, as a monarch, she had to wear an awful lot of different faces during her day.
And yet I noticed she looked... happy. Happier than before during my time here.
Some time after that, mom was off on business. Something about a new vehicle factory that needed to be inspected. That left Pipp and me back at the palace, and with an obvious obstacle I decided it was time to do some sleuthing about.
Truth be told, it wasn't hard to find the Palace Guard. They were busy drilling on the parade ground behind the palace. Based on the music the band was playing they were rehearsing a march for festivities later on. It was a very slow one though, so it was probably for travelling short distances.
"SLOW IT DOWN, PRIVATE GAZE! YOU'RE HALF A BEAT TOO FAST!"
"YES COLONEL!" a voice replied.
I made my way down there and spoke to a soldier nearby. "Could I talk with the Colonel quickly?"
"Yes, Your Highness," the soldier replied, and trotted over to the parade area.
This seemed to work, and there was a barked command. "CAPTAIN BRISTOL! TAKE CONTROL OF THE PARADE!"
"YES SIR!"
The Colonel then made his way over to me, and saluted as he came to a stop. "Your Royal Highness," he said. "How may I assist you today?"
"Please, just call me Zipp," I replied. "I was wondering if we could go over security arrangements for next week?"
"Of course," he replied. "I've increased troop deployments around the palace and- could we hold the music for a moment, please?"
"Yes, Colonel Opwinden!" called the bandmaster.
So Opwinden was his name? Interesting. "As you're probably aware security is a bit of a big deal at the moment."
"I understand entirely, Your Roy- Zipp," he said, quickly stopping and correcting himself. "I don't think there's anything to worry about, though. These festivities constitute the largest peacetime deployment in quite a while! It will certainly be good to showcase all the drill we've worked on."
I nodded, noticing they were still going even though there was no music. "Carry on, Colonel."
The Colonel saluted me back. "Good day, Your Highness."
So, heavy security and a large scale peacetime deployment? They didn't show us any of this in the movie, but then again the timeframe was restricted to the exact day of the Royal Celebration. It's possible all the deployment stuff was the week before, and the soldiers returned to their barracks before the event shown in the movie. This would explain why we only see palace guards in the film.
I made my way back indoors, and soon found myself heading back for the research facility I called home for a bit. Once down there, I checked the various strange artefacts and found a mysterious glowing thing amonst them. I looked closely at the object and was amazed.
Had I found a prisbeam object in this place? This was interesting, but it could wait until later. I had to test a theory of aerodynamics, so I fired up the fan and hopped onto it, experimenting with glide angles and positions.
I was retiring to my room for the night when I suddenly heard something odd coming from mom's room. I stopped and pricked my ears to listen closer. It was then I realised what I was hearing.
Was she in pain? Trouble?
I decided to investigate. I pushed the doors open and stepped inside. I knew that entering without knocking was technically a breach of Royal Protocol, but in the circumstances I didn't really care.
The room seemed mostly normal. Mom was next to her desk, seemingly shaking. I figured out fairly quickly what the sound was. She was sobbing.
I made my way over to her, being careful not to tread on things as I went through the room. As I looked at the scattered items on her desk, I spotted newspapers, old information cuttings, photographs- and a stack of letters.
I figured out what this meant almost immediately. Were these things relating to dad? I mean, Zipp's dad. I'd only really just gotten used to the idea of a fictional character being my mother. This would take a little extra processing.
Tears stained some of the paperwork on the table, turning some of them to a yellowy hue. I spoke up. "Mom, what's wrong?"
She turned to me. Her eyes were red, and the fur around her eyes and cheeks were wet. Wet with tears. Over her shoulder I saw letters filled with information about us. She had continued to write to him even after he'd seemingly died.
Mom then said the first words that she'd said the entire time we'd been standing there. "I miss him, Zephyrina."
I took her into a hug as she collapsed into a fresh wave of tears. "Hey, take it easy," I said. "We all do. We're all hurting." I continued to stay there as she continued to sob into my coat.
"There, easy. Just let it all out."
A few minutes passed, and mom stopped to seemingly compose herself. "Forgive me," she said. "That was most improper."
"Grief is completely natural," I replied. "Especially for somepony so close to you."
She sighed. "I... I just don't like it when you see me this way. It's weakness, and the people can't see that. I have to stay strong for them! Whatever would they think?"
I chose some words I had heard a wise man back in the old world say a long time ago. "Mom, ponies don't cry because they're weak. They cry because they've had to be strong for too long. We're only pegasi. The people can see that. And they miss him too."
Mom seemed legitimately touched by those words. "Thank you, Zephyrina," she said. "I guess I needed that." She glanced at a clock. "I'd best get these put away and off to bed. There's a full schedule tomorrow."
I nodded. "I'm gonna turn in too. Take care."
"You too."
Well, that was interesting. Turns out Queen Haven does have a heart after all. She was maintaining that image the entire time for their sake, not just her own.
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New chapter, folks!
Again, this was some wonderful stuff with some well done exchanges, characterizations and future chapter set-up. Definitely liked "Zipp's" observations concerning "Haven's" behavior as well as that one older stallion's odd accent before the recall of Zipp and Pipp's father and "Zipp" putting in that helpful advice concerning the grief.
VERY MUCH looking forward to more of this, once again.
great chapter mate keep it up cant wait for the next chapter
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Glad your enjoying this. What our characters choose to include in the narrative (and coversely leave out) often shows us their priorities.
11642420
Hopefully you won't have to wait as long as you did for this one.
noticed she had her eyes*
oddness,*
the drills*
Probably.
That's unlike Haven to do so.
Showing signs of sadness is completely normal. Everyone feels it's every so often.
I myself still do too to as i care a lot about my health. And since I got covid back in late February...
Yeah Faust IS THE GOD!
she wielded the elements first She Created the world
It was her words that We see everyday in mlp
She said the famous line of friendship is magic and gave it its power
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1-3. Corrected.
4. Seems plausible.
5. The person we see behind closed doors is often very different to the person in public.
6. Very true. It's especially hard if that person is somebody everybody looks to for strength.
7. That's not quite what I meant. As a person with a disability, I often find myself having to not act my true self in order to fit in. Much in the same way a mask hides our true appearance.
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Faust is the deity of G4 definitiely, but Zacherle is the deity above her.
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Is that the new creator? Or who is zach?
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got it.
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Bonnie Zacherle was the original creator of MLP, back in 1983.
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Good.
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Oh neat!
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The more you know.
But. . . "Haven" here is a displaced human, not the real Haven. (S)he wouldn't miss a stallion (s)he never knew. Unless I forgot something from the Haven Rebirth fic. Is it smilar to why "Sunny" misses her character's dad? Getting lost in character memories and emotions?
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It is precisely.
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Or how about this: It's like the two became one, like each entity consists of two souls blended together like a soul smoothie, and the entity is both of them, but one consciousness!
(Idea from "Wonderbolt Down", my favorite "5 Score Divided by 4" story)
Only difference (besides the Ponies not being displaced themselves amd reborn as the humans) is, not sure how much of the Pony's memories will surface to the "human's" consciousness as if they were "his" own. It was a big consistent theme of the 5-score storyverse, and some never did regain all their old memories...
1 thing I've been wanting to critique about this series: unlike with the 5-score fics, all the r63 genderbending stuff in these stories feels rather pointless. Pointless weirdness and (possibly) pandering.
With the kind of story you and the other guy are crafting, it seems you could've left it out, made the humans girls to begin with, and nothing would've changed. As it stands now, there seems no point to it other than fetish-pandering (even in a light manner)... 
Edit: Or maybe you just like doing that, imagining yourselves as different Ponies and dealing with the ramifications, including the genderswapping unfortunately. . . 😗
At least I got a break from it with Hitch and Sprout's stories.
(Wait, never realized that Sprout has the same colors as Big Mac!) 😅
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what was that quote Zipp said to Haven at the end what is it a reference to? what is the full quote?
Oooh. Okay. I thought things were going in a much diffrent direction at the beginning of this chapter. I do like this better. My first assumption was that she had been a human taking the role of Queen Haven for those 25 years. This is much sweeter. <3 Assuming we don't get a big reveal soon!
Oh wait, reading the comments, I'm beginning to think maybe the obvious thing happening in the chapter is correct. That's a choice. Not the most interesting one either, I think. But the memories of who you're inhabiting affecting your feelings about people or places is interesting at least. A "soul smoothie" as someone put it.
Yeah, the genderbending is somewhat irrelevant in this story. But that's fine. The author wanted to use themselves or their friends but not have the genderswap be a focus in the story. I can believe that some characters in a story wouldn't care about this or see it more as them playing a role and get over it fairly quickly. That said, going ot a waterpark was an interesting choice but kind of a throw away thing that didn't really effect the outcome of this chapter. We stil got the idea of the masks. We do know from the movie the Queen likes to swim at least.
I'm not sure what the characters know at this point though. Do they know about the Queen? They're acting like they notice but I don't know how they feel about it. Are they going to let the Queen know about them? Are they waiting for an opportune time? I guess I'll have to keep reading and find out.
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The concept of blended memories is borrowed from Bioshock; in the setting, real time genetic modification is made possible through the use of a substance called ADAM. However, ADAM is extremely hard to reproduce, and as such it is standard practice to harvest the stuff from dead bodies and recycle it back into the population. An unintended side effect of this was that people started to experience the memories of other people, which must have been a thoroughly surreal experience.
The water park sequence was intended to develop the characters and show us what they're like when the cameras are turned off, so to speak.