"This certainly is the strangest of things, to have been blessed with a horn and these wings."
The zebra mare had a troubled expression as she looked into the mirror. Zecora had acquired the large glass some months ago in Ponyville. Normally, the sight of her own reflection caused her some amusement, these ponies were ingenious with their inventions, however, this morning she had been shocked. She had woken with a mild headache and a pain in her shoulders, and had been on her way to find some herbs for the pain when she had espied herself in the mirror.
Zecora frowned. Upon her head now sat a spiralling horn, which was striped like a greyed-out candy-cane. The wings rustling at her sides were also non-uniform in colour, the tips of the flight feathers edged in dark grey. While pretty, the new additions were concerning.
She did not understand how this change had occurred. The zebra had never wished to possess the ability to perform magic, nor the power of flight, and now she had both. She resembled the Princesses of the land in attributes now, and did not wish to know what kind of havoc this could wreak upon Zebraic-Equestrian relations. It could be nothing, or have massive implications.
Zecora pondered what to do. Perhaps the new appendages would vanish the next day, as suddenly as they had appeared. She should just stay in her hut and wait it out. Well, that was the hope, anyway.
She pottered around her hut for a few hours, arranging bottles and taking inventory on her various herbs and plants. Zecora noted a significant lack of yarrow in her stock and grimaced. The herb was good for colds and a large number of ponies in the village had come down with runny noses. She had been asked for a lot of cold remedies. Zecora sighed. She would have to set out for some soon. Why not now? There is nothing else I am doing currently. She knew where the yarrow grew, in a pleasant little clearing that was arguably one of the most appealing places in the forest.
All the same, something made her reluctant to leave her home. Was she afraid that somepony would see her? Ridiculous. Nopony went into the Everfree if they could help it. Why would they suddenly appear now? Zecora snorted at her own foalishness. The chances of being seen were minimal at best, unless Twilight Sparkle or Apple Bloom happened to drop by for an impromptu visit.
Even after all of this reasoning, Zecora still hesitated before her doorway. She decided to wear her old cloak, just to be safe.
The striped alicorn stepped outside. The day was still bright, but under the gloom of the gnarled old trees it seemed to be twilight. The odd sunbeam struggled through the twisting branches here and there, creating dapples and spots of light not unlike stars in the night sky. Zecora smiled and began to trot forwards. This patch of forest was usually peaceful. She felt calm and serene in the silence. It was but a short walk to the-wait. Silence?
The Zebra paused abruptly, her ears flickering this way and that to pick up any sounds. It was deathly quiet. There were no birds chirping, nor the rustles of small furry things scurrying through the undergrowth. Not even the wind was whispering through the leaves. It was still. The forest was holding it's breath. Zecora didn't want to know why, so she hurried on, picking up her pace. The crunch of leaves beneath her feet was almost deafening, and her mind whirred.
Where were all the animals?
A snapping twig somewhere on her left made her stop again. She peered through the gloom of the forest. Eyes stared back, yellow, glowing. Timberwolves! Or rather, a timberwolf. Zecora yelped and turned back around. She ran as fast as she could, back to her hut, slamming the door shut with a good kick.
The timberwolf, startled by Zecora himself, had taken a few moments to realise that she was potential prey, and as such was a good distance behind her. As a being of the forest, he had not the slightest worry about the door in his path, seeing it only as another piece of wood that would get out of his way as all wooden objects did when he used his particular brand of forest magic. He did not reckon on the fact that one advantage of being a friend to the most powerful unicorn in recent history would be advanced wards against the creatures of the forest, including timberwolves, laid upon the dwelling of Zecora.
So, the timberwolf, who had woken up like every living being across Equestria with a degree of pain in the forehead and/or back, and who had not entirely recovered from his own splitting headache that morning, found out that Zecora's door was enchanted by smashing against it headfirst.
Zecora winced as she heard the crunch against her door. Even if you were a magical creature who was able to reform from a pile of scattered sticks, it had to be painful. She peeped through her window and saw the wolf clutching its head and staggering dizzily. Odd, an impact like that normally shattered a timberwolf.
Her eyes widened as she saw the wings pressed to it's sides. They resembled a pegasus' wings in all but size and material. The wolf removed his paw and Zecora saw that it appeared to have another stick driven into its forehead, and that the stick resembled a unicorn's horn. Her eyes narrowed.
"This situation is strange indeed, perhaps some assistance I may need. Who better to help me than my friend Twilight, who's search for knowledge oft' crosses to night. Perhaps she will know what is going on, but the wolf I must pass, should I go, should I run?" The zebra cast about for some sort of weapon she could use to slow down the creature. Her eyes alighted on a small pile of stones. They were small, but...
Zecora focused on one of the pebbles, trying to recall what Twilight had said about magic and how it worked. A turquoise aura captured one of the stones. She smiled, then plucked the stone from the air with a hoof. She tossed it between her hooves a few times before shaking her head. It wasn't heavy enough by a long shot.
She looked out of the window again. The timberwolf had recovered and started to prowl about. Were there any large rocks around? Zecora looked about, yes, there! She focused on a large rock, trying to lift it. She could feel a sort of draining feeling. It was like losing energy, but in a different way. Was this magical straining? The rock lifted shakily. Zecora gave a small smile, then looked to the timberwolf. She willed the rock to strike the wolf. It complied. The timberwolf shook itself, turned to look at the rock, began to laugh derisively, then fell to pieces. Upon seeing this, Zecora cheered.
"Take that you big and wooden brute, I have now learned how to shoot!"
She brayed with delight, then rushed out of the door, determined to make the most of the time she had given herself. She hoped that no other creature accosted her on the way to Ponyville.
Did I make any horrible mistakes on this chapter?
1915215 Well, it is short. But its still good!
Is this Discord's doing? Can all the new alicorns affect the Sun and Moon?
This is a really good story!
Wait, if Spike, the Timberwolf and all of Fluttershy's animals became alicorns, are those massive dragons alicorns too?
Keep up the good work!
This is... interesting, to say the least. I can't help but wonder what everypony's in charge of.
"I'm a princess of the plants!" said one alicorn tending a market, green mane glowing with natural energy.
"I'm a prince of water!" said another, blue eyes seemingly absorbing light and causing a ripple effect on his pupils.
"I'm the princess of air!" another stated, leaves swirling in a twister around her where-ever she trotted.
"Fuck this shit." said a brown alicorn, emitting a foul smell wherever he walked and completely fertilizing grass.
1915497
*Snicker*
1915532 Definitely possible, but Ponyville is a small town and it's not very likely to have an orphanage, I mean they only have one school that we know of that's very small to begin with.
Looking good so far. A few minor mistakes, but no more so than most other stories.
I'm glad to have found this story, as I've needed closure on the subject. The last person I saw approach this subject came under the sadly deluded impression that it would be a wonderful, clever idea to piss off every single one of his/her readers by ending the story not with a satisfying conclusion, but with a troll chapter, thus turning the entire story into an elaborate trollfic. You'd better not have that planned for this one.
1915621
Nah, I have an ending planned.
It'll probably be really predictable by the time I get there, but it won't suddenly explode into trolling.
You can't leave us like this!
Pinkie promise you won't.
Just remember: you can't abandon this story until we get the 'why.' We must know why such craziness is occurring! The idea is too awesome to pass up!
Oh god! I wonder how Derpy/Ditzy will react to being an alicorn?
Will it affect her mail delivering?
In any case, let the hilarity continue!
Last sentence of the first paragraph seems like it has a chunk missing... Great story!
I had been thinking about writing something similar for this for a while, but I gave up on the idea because I couldn't think of any way to make this interesting. I see you couldn't either. The most flattering thing I can say about this story is "boring".
Thumbs down with no regrets and a big question-mark to anyone that would think differently.
^ ^ ^ ^ Everypony's a critic... XD
1916117
Whoops, haha! Fixed!
1917004
Eh, can't please everyone I suppose! Thanks for actually taking the time to say why you didn't like it.
That being said, could you give any pointers? Is it just the fact that everypony is reacting similarly or something else?
1920775
'Realised' Is the British spelling. But thanks for the excited catches! *goes to fix*
Indents. There are none
1920819
no problem! and yea, i realized (no pun intended) that you were using the British spellings around chapter 5. Curse my one-letter ocd.
1920959
Fixed the indents! I keep forgetting them.
Also, Rainbow Dash isn't blue? I know she's normally called 'cyan', but I've always thought of cyan as a type of blue, like navy or cerulean.
1920981
Cyan is a type of blue-green, you can see the difference of blues from her mane and her coat.
Gah, im making too much of a big deal about this.
1920615
Well first I actually read all the chapters before I came to that conclusion. It is an interesting idea, an idea I had myself, but as I said I could not think of a good way to execute it.
There are many things wrong with it.
1)Plotwise it is idiotic that none ponies should become alicorns. Alicorns are the highest ideal form of a pony, not the highest form of a bear, a bunny or a turtle. It makes no sense to include them.
2) Story progression is too slow, nothing really happens. You said it yourself, the characters act too simular. This isn't however a recomendetion for you to try and make their reaction more original because the core of the problem is not their reaction similarity but the fact that you feel a need to focus on all of them. You need to pick your focus. Every good story have one or two main charecters, even the show itself, that is builed around the main six have episodical focus on one or two of them. For instence the pilot double episode was about Twilight meeting new friends in Ponyville and confronting an ancient evil. It was not about six ponies from Ponyville, that's what the metastory is about.
3) Your genre is off. You are listing it as "comedy" and "random" now I don't know about random but comedy is something you are supposed to laugh at. It is very difficult to write a good comedy, as it is not just about craking jokes or standing on a stage put presenting a situation that are itself funny.
Letters from a Disgruntled Friendship student is a rare example of a good mlp. Allow me to quote the entirety of chapter 22:
Letters From A Disgruntled Friendship Student
by milesprower06
A Bird In The Hoof
Dear Princess Celestia,
Your pet bird is a dick.
Your former student,
Twilight Sparkle
Funny right? Most chapters are longer but this is a good example of how you can make a comedy with as little as 27 words. Comedy you must understand is something I have a special interest in. Are you familiar with "The Clouds" by Aristophanes? No! well who are? it's a comedy, a comedy that no one understands because in order to find a find a joke funny, you must first understand the joke, a joke that have to be explained is never funny. It is not funny because in order to find it funny you need an intimate understanding of ancient Greece. It survived and you can study it for scientific purposes. I am sure that this mare -> would do it for just that reason, but for us normal folks, we would just find it boring. The reason why "Letters From A Disgruntled Friendship Student" is funny is because we already have an intimate understanding on the show from which it is based. You cannot introduce this to someone that hasn't even heard of the term "brony" and except them to get as much as a smile reading this. Comedy requires knowledge. It requires a knowledged audience. There are so many factors that determines and defines what is and what is not funny, that it is impossible to even conceive of such a thing as a universal joke. Comedy is bound in time, place and culture.
This is completely different from tragedy or any of the other serious genres. A tragedy like Euripides's "Iphigenia" or "Electra" on the other hand transcends time and place in its message and can instantly be understood without special knowledge of the culture from which it came.
The core of what I am trying to say is, that it is hard to understand comedy and you shouldn't take it easy, humour is not a joke.
That being said, it seems to me like you use the tag "comedy" in order to legitimize why you aren't taking your own story seriously, an excuse to make it worse then it could otherwise be. I'm saying that your story is not a comedy at all and is tagged wrongly. If you want to make it into a comedy, first of all I don't even know how you can do that with the premise "everypony turns into an alicorn" but you would have to make the simple test to see if you laugh of what you write yourself. If your story cannot even get yourself to laugh, you who should have the best possible knowledge of it, then you cannot expect that it will make anyone else laugh either.
'^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
To quote Discord, "What fun is there in making sense?"
This story is faaaar better than some of the crap I've seen that uses this idea.
Hrmm... did you mean with?
2009575
Ah, fixed, thanks!
Are we going to get a new chapter anytime soon?
2167328
Heheh, I'm working on it.
I know who I'm doing next and what they're going to do, but the words aren't flowing right. Expect to see something soon, probably.
1916006
Mostly it'll be heartwarming seeing Derpy teach Dinky to fly, and having Dinky, in turn, teach her mom how to use magic.
You know, with the right treatment, the idea of everypony becoming an alicorn could make for the pony equivalent of Torchwood: Miracle Day.
Ooh, that's not a bad idea. Too bad I already have a big project of my own.
NO I JUST FINISHED THE NEXT CHAPTER AND IT DIDN'T SAVE ASDFGHJKL -sob-
2486437
NOOOOOOOO.
2486437
That has happened to me. Several times. It is the. Worst. Possible. Thing. on Fimfiction
2767481>>2486437 This is why I write my chapters in Microsoft Word first.
Wut.
2486437
Sallin: Ok now, fim fiction, please save this chapter.
Fimfiction.net: Nah bruh, I dun feel like it *deletes chapter* luk bruh ima angel
First, we need a new term for this. I was thinking Zelicorn, for obvious reasons.
Second, reading the timberwolf falling apart made me hear the sound of a Dry Bones doing the same.
Third, I'm wondering how a certain favorite older sibling would take to this.
1921901 I can understand why you think that the pacing is slow, because it is. The thing is, everyone wants to see their favorite character's reactions, which would understandably cause the pacing to be pretty slow.
About your other points:
Re-read that line, and you will find that you have subconsciously figured out the storyline. *coughcoughdiscordcough*
Yeah, about that: I could see someone going "Heh, I understand why she wrote that" but, you would have to be very immature to think of it as funny enough to truly laugh. I mean "HAHAHA!!! TWILIGHT SENT CELESTIA A LETTER CALLING HER PHEONIX THE D-WORD!!" sounds like something a stupid High-school Freshman would say, and you know how (im)mature a Freshman can be.
The ridiculousness of what is happening in the story and the possibilities of what can happen in a world full of alicorn everythings makes the story a comedy.
Also, how can alicorn CMCs NOT BE FUNNY?!?!
Whoa, whoa, WOAH! The author is asking for help and input for the story, and I honestly doubt that this is a trollfic (as the author said it wasn't). If that's not taking a story seriously, then what is?
This made me laugh.