Chapter 5
Chapter 5
I found the armory after doing a little exploring, though it took longer than I'd have liked. After getting turned around four times and even ending up at a row of dug outhouses (which you could not pay me to use) I decided to risk asking directions. The guy I asked did better than that: he showed me the way there while his partner continued patrolling. Perhaps looking old to these guys has its advantages!
“Here you go, old-timer. Just don't hurt yourself, okay? I'd rather not get an earful because you threw your back out trying to suit up and relive your glory days.”
“I could still kick you're butt, you brat!” I shook a fist at him. He laughed and walked away, leaving me to my own devices. Since I was already here I took a peek inside to see what I might have to deal with in the future. To my relief all of what I saw looked like what I'd seen on the men patrolling the encampment: Middle Ages weaponry. I was curious as to why this was given that they'd had just as much time as us to advance themselves, but did not think into it too much. There would be time enough for that later after I'd gotten the ponies (and myself) out of here. I grabbed a new knife to replace the one I'd broken, then remembered that I'd put the Unicorn horn in it and returned it to the weapon rack and exited the armory and walked around to the back.
Just as the green earth pony had said it would be. It was nothing fancy. It looked more like a barn than an actual prison like I'd expected, but then I supposed a barn could be considered a prison to an equine.
This building looked more permanent than the rest of the encampment, which could have meant that either they intended this to stay here, or else they were not able to build something less permanent for what this reality's Humans had in mind to be taking place here.
I walked down the middle between gate after gate, all of them made from wood with a simple latch, but the latches had been made for Humans to use, which meant that the ponies would not have been able to use them, effectively trapping them if they could not use magic. I scratched my head, puzzled. But Rarity can use magic! Why would this place hold her? I began looking over the gates at the makes and fillies that were being held within. Their maturities ranged from just above being foals to just below being elderly. It seems they're interested right now in finding out what their reproductive age ends and begins at to see if there are any differences between their own equines and this world's. He was right, they are going to breed them.
Most of the younger ponies were sniffling or outright crying, and it tore at my heart to see them like that, but if I just let them out now they'd probably only get caught again unless I could get them all out at once, and even if I could they'd probably try to beat me up before they ran unless I could give them incentive to trust me first.
“Rarity!” I called out. “Is there a Unicorn named Rarity here?” I heard the sound of movement in several stalls, but I received no answer. “The green earth pony says he's sorry.” Still no verbal reply. “Please, we don't have much time. If you're here, please tell me so I can get you out.” At the last word more movement came from the stalls and a chorus of voices called out for me to release them too. They obviously could not see over the doors of the stalls, otherwise their reactions likely would have been much different, but I still did not hear Rarity's voice. She and I had not been as close as some of the other girls but I still remembered the sound of her voice clearly. I also knew what would set her off. “Dark brown and bright yellow are the perfect colors to wear together for every occasion!” I called out over the din of the other pony's voices. A gasp followed by a shriek of horror overrode the other voices.
“Only a maniac could ever believe such a horrible thing! Remove that abominable color-clash immediately!” She demanded.
“There you are!” I exclaimed, heading for the fifth-from-last stall on the right side. I unlatched the door and then had Rarity throw herself at me. She paused in stunned silence when she saw that I was in fact a Human, and then she glared death and tried to stomp my face. I grabbed her front legs and rolled us over so that I was on top and then wrestled with her until I was standing. Though I held up Rarity's front legs, her back touched the ground, and she tried using this against me.
“Release me you fiend! Your kind have taken my carrier, my figure, my virginity, and my magic from me! What more could you want?!” She began to sob, still fighting to get loose. It was then I noticed that her horn had either been removed, or had been shaved down to a circle of bone on her forehead. The spiral shape that often wound around the horn itself was a spiral that wound its way to the center of the stump almost like the rings of a tree, only her spiral was the red of blood.
“I know that I look like the others, Rarity, but I am not your enemy! Hold still!” She tried to kick me with her hind legs and nicked the right side of my chest. I grunted and foolishly released her. As soon as her front hoofs touched the ground she jumped and threw her full body weight into my chest, knocking me over backwards. She again threw herself at me, her face a dark storm. “Rarity! Stop it! I'm trying to save you!”
“I don't want help from your kind!!! she growled. “You've taken everything but my life from me!”
“I'm not like them!” I repeated, yelling this time and once more trying to keep her from stomping my face. “I can prove it!” I placed my hands on her chest and shoved her back off of me and sat up quickly, using the momentum to get to my knees. I focused my mind and held her against the floor with telekinesis. Rarity flailed her legs about, but she was stuck like a fly on flypaper. “That's better.” I said as I stood up and walked to her, stopping just out of the reach of her hind legs. “Now, like I said, I'm not like them! Fluttershy noticed this, let's see if you do too.” Her eyes widened at the familiar name and I bared my teeth at her. She studied them a moment, then looked at my eyes with a raised eyebrow.
“Am I supposed to be seeing something?” I closed my mouth and chuckled. You'd think that someone like her whom has an eye for detail would notice the difference. No matter.
“My teeth are different, but that in and of itself is no reason to believe that I'm of another race, so I'll give you another: I can use magic, and those others cannot.”
“Again, that's not a reason to trust you.” I nodded. She was right, it was not. But I had a feeling that there was something I could do that would convince her. Though if that does not work I'll probably have to fight her again, and it'll be harder that time around.
“Then how about this? If you promise to convince the other ponies to trust me, I'll give you your magic back.” Rarity's eyes became wide and rose to the top of her head before becoming suspicious a second later.
“That's impossible. Only the most skilled healers can re-attach limbs, and even if you were that skilled, they took my horn away from here, as they do with the other Unicorns that fought them with magic.” I reached down into my boot and withdrew Twilight's horn, then removed my backpack from my back and pulled out my Rarity's horn and displayed it to her.
“Are you sure? Then what's this?” She gaped at it, then at the purple horn.
“Where did you get those?”
“Do we have a deal?” Rarity hesitated, and looked at the other stalls. While we fought the voices had changed from 'release me' to 'get him, Rarity!' and now they had grown quiet again- they were listening. Rarity was probably considering going back on her word once I'd healed her. That's a risk I'll have to take if we're going to get out of here. I'm not leaving without her, and my conscience won't let me just leave the others when I can help them as well.
Rarity nodded, and I returned Twilight's horn to my boot and reached into the other for the knife that I still had.
“What's that for?” She asked. I explained that the way I'd been taught for connecting bone to bone involved fresh blood touching both parts. In truth I had never attempted connecting old bone to still-living, and had only tried re-attaching horns when it came to forging a wand, but given that the horn had belonged to a Rarity it would probably still work. I hope it works, otherwise I'll not only seem a liar, but I'll have squandered Rarity's gift!
“I can use either mine or yours. Which would you prefer?”
“This is your magic, so use your blood.” I nodded and cut a line across the palm of the hand holding 'her' horn and spread a few drops along is smoothed base and then gripped it again, ignoring the slight twinge as pressure was applied to the cut. I lined the base of the horn up with stump and allowed my blood to form a line of it to run down the shaft and come into contact with the stump.
“Alright...here we go.” I drew on the power granted me by both horns and recalled the spell that Twilight had used back when it was me, her, and Melinda forging my wand. Rarity's stump and the horn began pulling blood from my hand like a sponge pulls water from the bowl it's dropped in. I knew they were doing this from the weakening feeling in my left arm and an odd suction-feel against my palm. Sure enough, though, The line between the two parts of ivory disappeared in places as the two parts melded together.
Rarity gasped underneath me and stared at me with wide eyes.
“I- I can feel it! My magic! But...something’s different...” She fidgeted a little.
“Please stay still and don't use any magic yet. I'm not done.” She ceased movement and waited while I returned my focus to 'healing' her. It did not take long. As soon as blood ceased being pulled from my hand I knew the process was complete and I released my grip on it and turned my palm over. The skin of my palm was pale, as was my wrist, so I healed the cut to prevent any more leakage and waited for the color to return on its own. In the meantime I released my hold on Rarity and told her I was finished and she could get up.
Rarity rolled over and stood a moment later and focused her magic on the latches on all the stalls around me. The instant they were open the other filliess and mares ran out and surrounded us. Some were amazed at Rarity's horn having been restored to her, but almost all of them glared at me. I looked around me, feeling a bit nervous, and then looked at Rarity, who looked rather pleased with herself.
“Well, you certainly did restore my magic to me, though I still think it feels a bit odd. Tell me, girls, does my horn look any different?” A light blue one said that her spiral groove now had a red highlight. “Probably from him using his blood for it instead of mine. Oh well, I've gotten it back, so I suppose I should not complain.” She shrugged. Looking at me again, she nodded. “Alright. I'll trust you for now. How are you going to get us out of here?”
I told them that I still needed to get several others (whom had told me how to find them in the first place) out first before we could leave and asked if they would be willing to wait for me to come back with them. Rarity did not want to stay in that place any longer and neither did the others, so in the end I had a parade of pastel ponies plodding along behind me. If anyone happened to see us now, there would be no way to explain myself, and it was unlikely they'd chalk it up to 'stupid old man has gone senile'. Strangely enough, we did not encounter anyone at all, which I not only found odd, but completely unrealistic. The ponies in the cage had said that there were at least few over a dozen here, which probably did not include any others that might have been from the next shift whom were asleep at the moment, so unless they all got diarrhea at the same time (unlikely) we should have seen at least one person walking around. Something's not right. I said as much to Rarity, who could offer no insight as she had been locked in that breeding barn ever since she had arrived, as had most of the others.
“I don't like this.”
“You don't like that we've had no trouble? What's so bad about that?”
“Not having trouble is fine with me, but I passed two patrols and one young woman before I found you lot. To not see anyone at all...I feel like I'm walking into a trap or something.”
A few minutes later we found out that this was exactly what we were doing. There were three armed-to-the-teeth guards waiting by the cage with arrows knocked to bows and aimed at us along with the young woman that I'd passed after burning Rainbow Dash's remains. Seeing this I raised my hands and prepared to deflect them.
“I wouldn't do that, if I were you. That is, if you don't want us to slaughter your horse-friends.” The young woman said, and snapped her fingers. On all sides of us several more guards stepped out from behind buildings and pointed spears at us. How did they get that close without us seeing or hearing them?! The ponies pressed their backs against one another and stared out at those that had surrounded us.
Seeing our reactions the young woman grinned and walked forward by herself and stopped a few feet away from us. “I just used my head, that's all. When I saw that you'd only burned the dead Pegasus after killing the butcher I guessed first that it had been a would-be hero Unicorn that had come, but then I saw no hoofprints on the ground outside the kitchen. Three of my men a few days ago swore they'd been chased off by a Human that used magic, so I simply put the pieces of the puzzle together and figured you were here to break them out and then return to wherever you had come from. I figured that you'd search the entire place, so all I had to do was get my people in a position of ambush in a place I knew you'd find, and wait.” She spread her arms, still grinning. “And here you are!”
“I just found out that you had one of my best friends killed, so I'm in no mood for games.” I said. If she'd wanted me dead then she could have ordered me run through by a spear, or shot with an arrow before I had time to react. Obviously she wanted something else. “What do you want?”
“Many things,” She replied. “but at the moment only a few are pressing. First, I want to know how you're able to use magic. No one else I've ever heard of ever has.” I laughed at her. She shrugged. “That was about the reply that I expected. The second thing I want to know how many of you magic-Humans there are fighting for the ponies, but I doubt you'll give me that information willingly, so let's move on to the third and at the moment most-wanted: I want you to help me get rid of someone.”
“And by get rid of, I'm assuming you mean, 'kill'.” She nodded.
“In our society, only the strong, or the clever rule for prolonged periods of time. I am looking to increase my station, but sadly I am currently in no position to do so. I do have a plan in mind, but I'll need you in order to implement it.”
“Why should I help you do anything?” She motioned at the ponies behind me, and thumbed at the ones behind her and clapped her hands. Her archers hesitated a moment, but then unlocked the cage and backed away from it. Her spear men also backed off.
“You don't have to do so right now, but I will need your help soon. As a gesture of good faith I'll let both you and them go today, but in return, when I send a messenger for you I want you to come back with my messenger and hear what I have to say. If you choose to aid me I'll stop the raids my town is making against the pony nation, though I cannot speak for the other towns, tribes, and of course, our king.. If you refuse you'll only be hurting yourselves.” She stepped to one side so that we could join with the caged group, which the ponies quickly did before once more turning outward to look for any threats.
Not taking my eyes off of her until I had joined the ponies, I followed the herd out of the encampment. At the edge I stopped and turned back to see that both she and her guards had followed us . “How will I find you if the messenger and I become separated? What is your name?”
“Don't you know it's rude to ask someone's name without giving yours first?” She asked back, sounding annoyed.
“My name is Jacob Pharaoh Lighthand the Ninth.”
“My name is Jackylin Empress Darkfist, I'm also the Ninth. Eerily similar, isn't it?”
__ __ __ __ __
Jackylin watched them go for a few minutes before turning away and returning to her tent. Several of her men questioned the wisdom of this, especially when she'd just given away the spoils of the last two raids. The others were currently on their way back to Gaea following a roundabout route that would take them around where Luna and her forces were watching the old route from the Stone Arch Gateway to the Griffon lands. They would not arrive for a little over a month, but it would be worth it.
Jackylin replied that if it gained him as a potential ally rather than an enemy, it would be worth it. She just hoped that her grandfather and father agreed with her. While her grandfather was just as good a strategic thinker as she, if not better, all too often he preferred caution when there were gains to be made. This had served him well back home, but here it all too often cost them precious time and resources.
Her father, sadly, lacked a strategic mind and used his muscle more often than his head, which had cost them the lives of men and women in some of his bolder raids. But, She thought. that would be why grandpa is in charge of the expedition this time around and not him! Jackylin hoped that the next time they chose a leader it would be her. So long as Jacob came when she summoned him and he agreed to take part in her plans, she would gain so much more than leadership of a raiding team.
Jackylin yawned and removed her boots and once more left them outside of her tent before crawling under her covers. She knew she would get an earful later, but for now, it was time to sleep.
^ ^ ^ ^ ^
The next several days were filled with pony-to-pony chatter and several unsure or suspicious glances my way. I blocked it out for the most part and kept walking back towards Ponyville. Yes, I had failed in my original purpose for coming out here in the first place, but I'd done some good, right? Not that it changes the ache it leaves in my heart. Celestia might forgive me for failing after bringing so many back, but I never would, and it was unlikely that the other five Harmony Element bearers would either with the exception perhaps being Fluttershy. No doubt by now all of them (and most of the town if the girls had told Pinkie Pie) knew what Celestia had charged me with.
I knew that carrying guilt along with me would gain me nothing but a distracted mind, but I could not help it through the two and a half days it took to walk back to Ponyville. Once there, however, I temporarily forgot about it as the equines I'd freed ran by me to the town, leaving me to make my way into town at my walk. Their eagerness brought an ironic smile to smile to my face; it seemed even the illusion of safety could bring hope to the heart.
What followed were many greetings, offers of sympathy offered by those that had not been taken, and joy as a few members of family that had been taken from Ponyville were now returned to them. I did not ask for a thank you, rather, I walked through the crowd of ungrateful equines and entered the Sugarcube Corner, which at the moment was thankfully empty with the exception of a suddenly-nervous Mrs Cake and not-so-cheerful Pinkie Pie, whose hair became inflated the moment she saw me.
“Oh my gosh! You came back!” She exclaimed and ran to my side. “So you saved Rainbow and Rarity?! Cuz you know Rainbow Dash is my best friend and Rarity is nice too and if you did the princess would be thrilled and- wait, you look sad.” I walked over to one of the too-small-for-me chairs and sat on it as best I could and sighed and put my face in a palm. As I did so the door bell jingled again and Rarity came in through the door. Pinkie jumped up in the air and waved her arms- or rather, her forelegs- so quickly they blurred and galloped over to Rarity and caught her up in a hug. “Rarity! Twilight's gonna be thrilled that you two made it back safely and so will the princess- hey we should have a party to celebrate don't you-” Pinkie stopped mid-sentence and cocked her head at Rarity's look of confusion.
“Rainbow Dash was taken prisoner too?” She asked, and then turned her head to look at me. I looked at her briefly through my fingers and then broke eye contact and looked away. She trotted over to me and asked why she had not been with me when I came to their rescue. I removed my hand and gave her a mournful look.
“I did not get there to her fast enough. Seconds...just seconds- !!! My sentence broke as my words caught in my throat. I drew in a shaky breath and tried again. “I found Rainbow Dash in what the carnivorous Humans called a 'kitchen'. That was no kitchen. A kitchen is a place of culinary creation. That place was a butchery. She was in the process of being gutted when I found her.” My hands started trembling again and all three females gasped and held their hoofs over their mouths. “I set the place on fire before I left but I guess they put it out because when we passed it on the way out of the encampment it was still standing. But I'm pretty such she was cremated before they did extinguish the fire, at least.”
“Cremated?” Mrs Cake asked.
“It's a way my people handle our dead.” I explained. “I burned her so that there'd be nothing for them to eat.”
Shortly after Rarity and Pinkie Pie left the Sugarcube to tell their other friends the true results of my mission. In the meantime Mrs Cake generously offered me a brownie and a chocolate milkshake. I thanked her and placed a handful of bits on the table next to me. She said the snack was on the house, but I didn't take them back. Halfway through the shake Twilight Sparkle walked in and took a seat across from me and studied me while I continued sucking down the semi-solid treat. I stared straight ahead, not focusing on anything.
“You didn't fail.” She said. I pretended to ignore her because I did not agree, though those were exactly the words I wanted to hear. She leaned forward. “You did not fail.” She said slower. I took a longer draw on my milkshake and found I'd reached the bottom. I looked in the bottom and then pushed it to one side and ate the last bite of brownie.
“I'll need to send a letter to the princess later. You don't mind if I borrow Spike for that, do you?” I asked, pretending I'd not heard her. She frowned at me as I stood again.
“Fine, we won't talk about Rainbow.” Twilight said, and got out of her seat and followed me towards the door. “Rarity told me that that girl, Jackylin is planning something and intends to send you a message later. You aren't really going to help her, are you?”
“That depends on what she has in mind.” I ducked under the low door and walked outside. “If it's something that can cause dissent amongst her race, than yes. From what I've seen their tech level is in my people's Middle Ages, meaning some of the same weapons that you ponies use, which means that this war will have to be won using strategy. I've got no idea how high their population is on Gaea, but on my world we have over six billion. If that is the same here, your world is doomed one way or another. They'll just keep coming no matter how skilled your fighters and magic-users are.” Twilight stopped and stared at me, her right eye twitching.
“Over...six...billion!?!” She squeaked out.
“Luna reacted much the same way when I told her that back home, only back home according to your world's history Humanity had always been Equestria's allies in war instead of enemies. Since that's not the case here, we need to take every advantage we can get, and internal discord is a wonderful ally when it's your opponent that is experiencing it.”
“So getting them to fight each other is a good thing. Alright. So what will you do in the meantime?” I shrugged.
“First I'm going to send a letter to Celestia telling her that I failed to do what she assigned me along with an apology, and then I'll await her judgment. After that, we'll see.”
“Rarity said that if you agreed to help, then that woman would stop attacking us but warned that she had no control over others' forces. You may not be their breed of Human,” We stopped outside the door to her house. “but you're still very similar. What are your kind weak against?” I laughed.
“Pretty much everything, really. We aren't very strong, even your foals can outrun the average Human, we can't fly, and we have no claws. Well, I have no claws. They might. They also have pointed teeth and I don't. Actually, now that I think about it, being that they're predators, they probably run faster than my kind does, too. Never mind, forget I said anything.” Twilight opened her door and we walked inside. I hung my backpack up on her coat hooks and continued further into the library.
“You wait here. I'm going to go and get Spike so you can send your letter.” I nodded and took a seat on the floor.
True to her word, Twilight came back with Spike, but it had taken a little longer than I'd expected. He must have been busy at that communications place. Given all their recent visitors, that would not surprise me.
“We're back, Jacob. You can send your letter whenever you want.” I nodded and stood and walked to her writing desk and took a piece of parchment and uncapped her ink well and chose a quill and began writing. I did not say much and wrote what I said I would along with a mention of what Jackylin had said. In total there was less about a paragraph.
I rolled the 'letter'- Or note, rather. Too short to be a letter.- and up and dripped some wax from a candle onto the parchment sheet's edge to seal it and then leaned over and handed it to Spike.
“Done. If you would, Spike?” He took it and torched it. The smoke flew up and out a window. “Thank you.” Now to await judgment.
I did not have to wait long. Seven minutes later Spike belched and a new letter appeared. Spiek broke the seal and scanned his eyes over it, and then handed it to me.
To Jacob Lighthand,
As my student predicted beforehand in a letter she sent ahead of yours, you made no attempt to
explain the reasons for your failure to me, nor did you mention that you helped more than a dozen
other ponies make their escape. Guilt can be a terrible thing, and even worse when you feel that you've
failed a friend, but do not sell yourself short. Even if you do not forgive yourself, I forgive you,
and there are several pony families that forgive you because of what you have accomplished.
On a different note, I find the news that not every Human attacking us is of the same mind very
pertinent information. For your next assignment I charge you with finding out all that you can
concerning this 'internal discord' as you termed it with my student and try to find a way to work it to our
advantage.
P.S.
My student also mentioned that you re-attached Rarity's horn. I've witnessed and performed
re-attachments of limbs before, but never of horns, and there are several healers I know of that would
give a leg to witness and know how you did that. I shall be sending three of them to you, along with a
blue Unicorn that recently broke half of her own horn off by accident. They shall be arriving within the
week. In the meantime, could you do me the favor of helping the denizens of that town make it more
defensible against Human assault? If you fear my little ponies will not listen to you, relay your ideas to
Twilight Sparkle and use her as your mouthpiece.
Princess Celestia
I lowered the letter and looked at Twilight, who was reading a book while telekinetically holding a candle above her for better lighting. I walked to her and Twilight looked up from her book and gave me a questioning look.
“Twilight, I'm sorry to disturb you, but do you think you could show me around town? We've got a lot of work to do.”
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"I grabbed a knew knife..." Ok that's just an adorable spelling error
Edit: God that was good. Not the magical induced bloodbath that I was hoping for but I'll let it slide
. I just can't get enough of this!
220030
Oh, there will be blood, just not yet.
as to the spelling error...oops.
hay hay i just thought could you make Jacob try to make the trees alive to fight for him or at least use them as natural walls and tree vines could be very dangerous or controlling a animal or or changing somethings apperance and giving them claws
220826
I was thinking more like raining rocks the size of Buicks or summoning a legion or two from hell to do his bidding.
Yes it's a bit out of setting but ever since he set those poor bastards on fire I've been dying to see him really bust out the big guns. Most powerful human mage ever? I hope he gets a chance to rearrange some major realestate. Like a mountain range
221383
i have a beter idea the best fall back plan
send the moon at the planet
221759 This....I can distinctly get behind :D
220448 Yah year WorldWalker? You've got a lot of expectations to live up to. I know the last story ate up a lot of it's budget in special effects but since you've got us hooked we demand more!
221833
i agree we need more magic more explosions knock us off our feet
P.S. if you need any ideas for attack spells im the guy you come to from thinking of rasing armys to the basic fireball spell i can come up with or have already seen many many spells
221759
Oh well, even if I can't there's still the lead-up and the epilogue. I'll probably do multiple endings for it too, though once this pathway reaches its end I don't think I'll pursue it any farther. I'll retire old-Jacob and gang, and let them have their peace.
No fair! You ruined the ending!
Guess I'll have to come up with something else...
221833
And not really alot. I mean, there there only seems to be four people commenting on it, so others seem to not so much look forward to it as read it while they're on the toilet, which is still fine, I guess.
222531
Who knows why things become popular. In everything, more people look than bother to vote. More people vote than comment. Then only the loons here comment at all.
You've managed to get 14 people to give you 5 stars so that's a good sign but fimfiction is a pretty soft-ball type site. If you're looking for a huge adoring audience then perhaps try getting it on EqD? Could try places like ponychan as well if that's what you're looking for.
Not that it means much but I really like what you've done
great
I do love the attention but chances are I'd forget to upload it on the other sites once I'd posted it here. Me memory ain't the greatest thing, I'm afraid.
234260
Well keep in mind you only have to host it one place. I've read a number of fics on EqD that link to just fimfiction. Just gotta shot off an email when you update (I think).
Given how much more stringent the requirements have gotten there though you might be better off spending some spare time polishing this story up first. Have you been over to ponychan /fic/ and asked one of the critics over there to brutalize your story?
243081
never been to ponychan. really anything with 'chan' in it when it comes to the internet makes me hesitate.
As to EqD I've only gone there I think maybe four or five times. The last time I went there my internet connection froze up. I prolly just need a new computer.
I'm not a visitor of the chans at all but, the /fic/ board at ponychan is probably your best source of brutally honest reviews, editors and advice and other resources for fic writers.
If you go there and can't learn anything then you probably should be off trying to get your work published. I've been impressed by number of quality editors that hang around there.
Edit: If that's what you were after that is.
245472
I have considered book-ifying this, but I'd have to change so darn much of it besides names that it might not be worth the effort. I'd have to cut a few characters, change a few species, add some, likely The royal sisters would become elves or something because of the long lifespan and magic capability, though then I'd have to figure out where he'd get an Alicorn horn from. I guess Alicorns could be converted into non-sentient animals, but that wouldn't feel right.
In all honesty, I just love the attention and the feeling that comes with feeling appreciated.
Oh man, you did it
. I was waiting for your other sequel to finish before reading it, so I never even noticed that you made this. I may wait till it finishes to read it, but believe me, it pleases me to no end that you are doing both! 