The First Night
“Nice one!” I patted Pumpkin Spice on the back as we watched the rock zoom through the air, easily flying past the thirty hoof mark. Even when it landed, it skidded some ten more feet, almost hitting the poor work-pony who had to mark all the distances in the widely ridiculed, yet fiercely competitive Central Equestrian Junior Rock-Bucking Division Open Round. I shook my head behind Pumpkin’s back: today was MY day, and I wasn’t about to let anyone take it from me.
“That was incredible! I think you might’ve just set a junior rock-bucking league record!” Coach Dash exclaimed. She started jumping up and down excitedly, a look of joy on her face. “20 bits says no one’s gonna beat that today!” She turned to the side, and started mumbling, “Think how much I could make with a kid like that, I’m betting that’s at least an extra six-fifty per month…”
“I’ll take that bet,” I said loudly as I stepped out from the crowd, “and I bet 100 bits that I’ll double the distance!”
Almost instantly the crowd began relentlessly chatting among themselves, trying to figure out just who this little filly thought she was. Meanwhile, the coach came trotting over to me. “Listen, uh…
“Violet Blossom,” I replied, not even surprised that Coach didn’t remember my name. While I wasn't fat or anything, I wasn’t exactly on the top tier of athletic ability.
“Yeah, whatever kid, I hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t really think that— ”
I cut her off before she can even finish the obvious thought. “Rock me.” Coach sighed, but still went over to get a rock from the pile, and brought it over to the pedestal.
“Okay folks, you can leave now, there’s nothing to see here. It’s just Violet Blossom.” As the crowd began to dissipate, I heard a couple snickers, a couple laughs, someone saying, “Oh. It’s her.” But today, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was me, and the rock. As I lined up in bucking position, I smiled: their minds were about to be blown.
“On your marks…..get set…..” said our rainbow-colored coach. I would say Dash was showing complete and udder boredom, but that would be too much of an understatement. “Buck away,” she finally said, with a sigh.
And buck I did. Ever since the first day I could trot I’ve been bucking.. Bucking when I go out to visit my aunt Applejack. Bucking when Cometstrike and his Pegasus friends make fun of me after school. Bucking when my devil of a teacher sent me to the principal. Again. Bucking the wall when I failed ANOTHER math test. It’s consumed my entire life, and I drove all of that energy into one single, powerful, stupendous buck, with every ounce of my very being.
“Told you so,” I muttered under my breath, one buck later. “Now let’s see someone beat THAT.” With a smirk of satisfaction, I turned and looked at the exiting crowd, and had a twinge of sadness; they had already left. Then I took a closer look, and realized that the reason I didn’t notice them was that they were all standing perfectly still, every last one of them, mouths agape, watching as the stone passed the 150, 160, 170 hoof mark. I didn’t even watch as I prepared to earn myself 140 bits. I just stood there with a smirk on my face, and pride in my heart.
“Listen, Violet, kid, that was incredible. As you know, I’m also a talent manager as well as a coach,” Coach Dash started saying, “and I think we could both be good for each other in the long run, you hear? I’m thinking, full scholarship, Wonderbolt Academy, Earth Pony Division. But hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. After all, the first thing you need to do is -WAKE - UP - RIGHT - NOW.”
“Um, sorry, what was that last part again?” I must have heard her wrong.
“I said, you just need to -GET -READY -FOR -SCHOOL -OR -YOU’RE -GOING -TO -BE -LATE.”
“What the hay is going on? What’s wrong with the coach?” I was as perplexed as I could get. Not a moment later, a portal opened beneath me, and I fell through into darkness.
“Gah!” I gasp, clutching my chest and sitting straight up in bed. “What time is it?!” The clock reads 8:25, meaning I only had five minutes to eat and get dressed in my school uniform, but if accounting for time taken to get to school, if I galloped at a pace of 20 miles per hour, and school being a half mile away, meant that I could get there in 1.5 minutes, meaning I ACTUALLY had around 3.5 minutes, with the exception being a small bridge with an incline of 25 degrees………it’s funny how the only place I CAN’T do math is school.
“Violet, do you want me to make you some breakfast before school? You don’t have much time,” calls up my mom.
“Yes please!” I shout back, as I run to my closet to throw on my school uniform. Scarf – check. Vest – check. Hat – check. And looking in my backpack: homework, quills, paper, books. Whew.
Throwing on my uniform (just a simple yellow scarf with our insignia on it), I gallop down the stairs two at a time, snatch my mom’s delicious homemade oatcakes off the oven, and prepare to head out.
As I’m leaving, my mom comes rushing into the room. “Wait!” she pants, out of breath, “you forgot your lunch! You have a fois grois vegetarien of lightly seasoned daisies on sun-blanched tomato bread, a healthy mixed salad of candied radishes and cucumbers, and some orchid crème brule for-”
“I got it Mom, thanks.” I grumble, though I had to admit, having a professional chef make your lunches every WAS pretty sweet. The only problems are the weeks when she’s on Royal Meal Duty. I pretty much end up eating twenty-one meals of Hot Pockets, with the occasionally pizza in there. Ever since Dad died, Mom’s been working twice as hard, so I’ve certainly had my fair share of Hot Pockets.
“Bye Mom!” I shout back as I leave for school. I glance back, and I notice my mom is STILL reciting my lunch. I sigh. Parents.
As the door slams behind me, I catch a glimpse of Pumpkin Spice running late as well, and I start heading towards the tangerine-coated filly. As I run up alongside her, I notice a familiar expression of confusion upon my friend’s face.
“Aw, Pumpkin, what happened this time?” Throughout the years, the injuries had been many, and Pumpkin Spice isn’t exactly the most….ahem….coordinated pegasus in Canterlot. Or the funniest. Or the coolest. Or the smartest. But what she lacks in actual skills, she makes up for in kindness.
“Did you hurt yourself again?”
She shakes her head. “Someone broke into our house last night. He only took cash, and all we had had was a little over a hundred bits, but still. It’s scary when people can just break into houses whenever they want.” She shudders. “It’s just creepy, y’know?”
“Yeah, I hear you. Let’s just get off to school, okay?”
With a nod, we both turn and head towards another day of learning.
Three pencils, two quizzes, and a test later, we are released from the icy prison that is Ms. Bloom’s class. At first, you think she’s nice. Y’know, first day of school, new teacher, no homework, the usual. But once the first day was over, Ms. Bloom made it very clear that fun was NOT part of her curriculum. She boarded up the windows to block out any sun (“Who needs that silly old thing?”), and replaced all the normal lightbulbs with those white fluorescent bulbs, used by only two places I know of: the interrogation room at the police station, and prisons. Somehow, Ms. Bloom managed to make it feel like both at once.
She may be the devil in ponified forme, but at least I’m her favorite. Correction: I was her favorite. How was I supposed to know that some stupid looking vase was her grandmothers? She shouldn’t keep buckin’ artifacts in the classroom! And anyway, it’s not even my fault! If anyone should have gotten into trouble, it should have been Pumpkin Spice! She was the one who can’t even walk straight enough to NOT push her best friend into a vase. Sometimes, I seriously worry about that filly.
I sigh; it’s no use remembering the past, especially when you can’t change it.
After I have packed up my things, I look up, and see an all-too-familiar pair of white wings looking down at me. With a snort and single kick, my entire bookbag goes flying, paper scattering everywhere before settling on the tile floor.
I keep looking up, and I see a pale white face; the face that has haunted my nightmares for years. The face that is a symbol of all things wrong in the world. The face that scares the living daylights out of every last member of our class, teacher included.
Cometstrike’s face.
“Well fellahs, look who’s here,” says Cometstrike in his usual degrading way. He glares down at me and laughs to himself.
“P-Please…go away…l-leave me alone!” I cry, already tearing up at the thought of what I knew they were going to do to me. It looks like he’s gotten even taller since last time, almost double my height. Oh, this isn’t good. This isn’t good at ALL. Now, this time is sure to be worse than last time, even though last time was worse than the time before. And the time before that….it pains me to even recall the horrors.
Cometstrike looks at his posse with a look of sarcastic amazement. “Did you hear that? It can speak.” He leans down, until his face was only inches away from mine. “But I didn’t know that DIRT ponies could talk!”
I whimper as I smelled bloodlust on his breath. No matter what was going to happen next, it wasn’t going to be pretty. I back away, only to be met with the cold, hard feeling of the back wall. There was no way out of this one. I curl up to protect my vitals, and prepare for the worst.
To my surprise, Cometstrike hesitates for a moment. I don’t know whether it was my defenseless position, my lack of a fight, or if the fight just left him. Whatever the case, he turns away with a sigh. “Let’s go, guys,” he says nonchalantly, “there are plenty of runts outside to pick on.”
“Uh, but boss,” says one of the Pegasus goons, “why are we leaving?”
“I’ll tell you later,” replies Cometstrike, rubbing his forehead with his hoof. “I think I need to lie down or something.”
“Uh, whatever you say, boss,” grumbles the lackey. And with a thundering of hooves, I am alone in the room.
…
Silence.
…
Still silence.
I lay there for a long time, shivering on the floor. What on earth was wrong with Cometstrike, that would cause him to…dare I even say it…let me go? I scramble to my hooves, and look around the room one more time. It’s weird to think that maybe, just maybe, it might be over. That I could finally get on with my life, stop the tormenting that has-
THUM. THUM. THUM.
I fall to the floor, my hooves pressed on my head. My head…the noise…..the pain. Everywhere that hasn’t suddenly been obscured with brightly coloured lights, little black spots begin dancing in circles, timing themselves with the rhythmic throbbing of my head. The headache....it is relentless. I begin trying to stumble out of the room, to call for help, to get a doctor. But halfway across the classroom, my legs stop working. The last thing I remember seeing were two familiar faces amidst the colors and sounds. I closed my eyes, and all was quiet.
“Gah!” I gasp, clutching my chest and sitting straight up in bed. “What time is it?!” I try to look around, but all I can see is bright, white light. After a few tense minutes of waiting, my vision finally clears up. I glance to my left and right, but my familiar alarm clock is nowhere to be found. As I look around further, I realize this isn’t my bed, I’m not in my room, and I certainly do not own these frilly pink pajamas. I move to get up, but abruptly lay back down, as the memories of last night all come flooding back. The headache was what caused it all. The pain only gave me brief moment of consciousness which, while unconnected, provide some glimpse into what occurred.
After the headache, I remember waking up, at some point, in a chariot far above the ground. I remember looking over the side, before becoming woozy again and fainting.
Later, I regained consciousness on a moving car or train, but I’m not sure where I was or what was happening, only that I was being watched by two vague figures.
Finally, I remember awaking as I was on a sled, being pulled across somewhere frozen with snow and ice. There was a team pulling, and I saw the same two figures riding on sleds beside me. This time, I remember being conscious enough to begin trying to move, but I found myself tied down, like a wild animal. I submitted to the cold and entered the void again.
Shaking my head, still full of memories, I really look around my surroundings for the first time. The room is roughly the size of my room at home, which isn’t exactly huge. The pale green walls contrast terribly with the white tiled floors, and all around me I can smell medicine..
A hospital. I must be in a hospital.
Why on earth would I be in a hospital? As far as I know, I didn’t get seriously injured last night, so what in Equestria is going on? The lack of windows make is annoyingly difficult to deduce the time of day, and I am completely alone in here. The only thing of mild interest would be the door. Somepony out there should know what’s going on.
Going up to the door, I notice a pretty important detail right off the get-go: there is no doorknob. I rub my hooves all over the door to see if maybe there was some button or switch that I couldn’t see. But no. There was nothing. No doorknob, no lock, no sort of device for opening in any way. The firm chrome door stands unmoving, staring me down as if daring to me run at it.
I consider the consequences: on the plus side, I could get out of here, and found out what’s going on. On the minus side, I could end up seriously hurting myself. I weigh the options for a bit, and then decide that whatever was happening, I needed to know about it.
I back up to the opposite side of the room, and stamp my hoof, getting myself into the athletic mood. I yell, and begin charging towards the door. The blood pounding is my ears is deafening; there is nothing, except for me, and the door. With a loud crack, I fall back onto my haunches. It turns out that steel is a lot harder than people make it out to be.
Holding my throbbing head, I sigh and turned back to my bed, and prepare to go back to sleep. Whatever was happening, someone was going to have to come and get me sometime. Until then, it was time to wait.
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Interesting premise, you've got quite a few spelling and grammar errors scattered through your work. You really would benefit from getting an editor or proofreader to go over your things.
All in all, 3 out of 5 pinkies. Not bad, but could use some improvment.
2230341
Thanks for the info! I'm not a very experienced writer, so I'm glad to get anything. Thanks again!
2230526
No problem. Advice is free, what you do with it however is another story altogether.
Okay, not bad! I like the intro, with the dream- a nice bit of whimsy in there with the rock-bucking contest.
Overall you have a fairly clear writing voice, and I don't notice you putting in too many adverbs or using clunky comparisons to try and add to the story (adverbs plague me). Most of the writing is clean and concise. Clean writing is good writing, and is one thing that helps to draw the reader in!
The pace may be a little fast, with more description than demonstration, but you've chosen to use the first-person voice, and that can be challenging. For the way you're telling it, I think it's what has to be done. One thing I struggle with is keeping in mind that MORE is not BETTER- I am learning that sometimes you have to stop trying to add ALL the details and add the IMPORTANT ones.
The cutdown is where I struggle- what to keep, what to leave. I have reluctantly settled on "If I have to fight to keep a bit in, it's not worth keeping." If you find yourself fighting and making a lot of changes to keep a few sentences or a particular description, that might be a sign the story can live without it.
The character development is decent, I get no hint of Mary Sue-ishness. Violet Blossom seems normal, a little rambunctious, and likeable. I like the way you described Pumpkin Spice. I'm a little less keen on the out-and-out bullying, simply because I'm wary of the direct transposition of situations, personalities, and events from our own world, but that's a personal preference and this is your story, not mine.
The kidnapping scene was confusing- the transition from Cometstrike being a bully to Violet waking up was jarring, and there was no clear sense of what whas happening. That's not to say you should describe exactly what happened while she was out, but... the sensations she's describing left me going, "What?" On the other hand, everything after that break makes a bit more sense.
Some editing advice: For breaks, either use the 'horizontal rule' option on the Fimfic editor, or use a LOT fewer tildes- say half a dozen to a dozen, and center them, so that when folks increase or decrease the size of the text, it doesn't come out funky.
When publishing online, the norm is to put a blank line between paragraphs- since pagespace isn't an issue, it really helps with readability. If you do that, I would also reconsider the indent of the first paragraph, since it's no longer needed to mark off new paragraphs. That would give you a cleaner margin and for me, I find it's easier to read short paragraphs when they all start at the same point on the page.
For the most part, grammar and punctuation aren't bad- I see you use commas with 'said' and periods when appropriate. I do see a fair number of misspelled words and some extra punctuation marks, as previously noted.
Good luck as you keep going!
2300487
Thanks a lot! I'll keep these thoughts in mind as I work on Chapter 2, and into the future.
I'm really quite new to the whole "post-a-fanfic-on-the-internet" community, so any help I get is always appreciated! Thanks a bundle!
P.S. And as for the part where it transitions from Cometstrike to being kidnapped, well, that'll be explained later.
2301358
You're welcome! Overall it's a friendly community, and I've found the 'new author' groups are pretty good if you're willing to accept criticism- people who whine after asking to be evaluated tend to get an earful.
I think the things that will make the most difference are writing more and reading more. And not just fanfiction, but classics- anything where the writer has a clear style so you can see how the language can be manipulated.
I believe you meant to say 'wasn't' instead of 'was'?