Ch.25: Red Wedding
A Hairy Problem Chapter 25 “Red Wedding”
Wedding bells sounded off in a grand symphony as Castle Heiferton became enshrouded in a cloud of red and white confetti. Crowds of minotaurs lined the streets, cheering wildly, for it was a national celebration. At long last, Princess Circe was engaged to a worthy mate, and not since the international match held in the Estadio Cowcatlan when the National Minotaur hoofball team faced off against the Baltimare Orioles from Equestira had there been a larger crowd gathered in Heiferton.
In retrospect, there wasn’t a single minotaur who would have predicted that Iron Will, seen as something of an outsider to minotaur traditionalists due to him making a living off of giving seminars to ponies, would gain the hand of the princess. Yet, there was no mistaking him when he’d stomped his way in the middle of the royal court to present the body of a werewolf to King Minos. Even more sensational was Iron Will’s claim that the werewolf he’d brought was the same one who had killed the minotaur queen almost a thousand years ago. For him to make such a claim was saying he’d literally fulfilled the ancient king’s decree that would earn him both a dukedom and the princess’s hand.
Even more surprising was the support of his claim from none other than the diarchy of Equestria. In a public release, Princess Celestia stated that the werewolf in question, Sable Loam, had been threatening the state of her country on-and-off for centuries and more recently had made attacks on the Element bearers. Iron Will, in his werewolf hunting quest, had joined up with the Element bearers and several Ponyville locals to track down and end Sable once and for all, with IW doing most of the actual fighting due to his superior strength and immunity to lycanthropy, along with landing the killing blow. King Minos had been so hoping for a potential suitor to complete the task whose credentials were better than “pony motivational speaker”, but because of IW’s backing by Celestia (and by extension the entire upper class of Equestria), he had no choice but to honor the age-old promise.
“Oh, I do love a good wedding!” sniffed Rarity, dabbing her tears on a kerchief. She, along with all of the other ponies involved with Applejack’s ‘werewolf problem’ had been personally invited by Iron Will himself to attend the wedding as VIP guests next to the Princesses. Only Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor declined, citing lingering trauma that stemmed from how far south their own royal wedding had gone.
“Ah don’t know ‘bout y’all, but Ah’m a mighty suspicious of that ‘Princess Circe’,” muttered Applejack. “How do we know she ain’t Chrysalis in disguise?”
“I doubt Chrysalis would even dare try to use mind control on somepony such as Iron Will,” Fluttershy insisted. “Even she can’t have that much control over somepony as assertive as him!”
The cheers and murmurs of the assembled crowds died down as royal trumpets blared. The castle gates opened, letting out an entire regiment of armed minotaur guards dressed in their finest liveries. Following them was a troupe of traveling earth pony acrobats, serving to increase the already heightened feelings of celebration and merriment at the wedding.
Another regiment of guards followed the performers, then came the cart bearing the newlyweds. Pulled by a team of the six strongest minotaurs, hailing from all across the kingdom, the car was a beautiful piece of art crafted from solid white oak and pure gold. It had been specially built decades ago to serve as the vehicle of such weddings, and to ride in it was a true bragging right of the elite. Of course, simply riding in a royal cart paled in comparison to Iron Will’s alleged “slaying” of Sable Loam the immortal werewolf, and the crowds went wild as the recently christened Duke Iron Will waved at the gathered crowds with his new bride doing the same. Rarity was especially pleased to see them in their outfits, as part of Celestia’s agreement with Iron Will to give him the credit for killing Sable Loam was that Rarity be the exclusive designer for all attire worn by the participants of the wedding. It not only proved to make the bride and groom look simply outstanding, but also would generate a lot of advertising and business for Rarity in the international sense. As the cart rolled past the Equestriani VIP section, Iron Will gave his pony friends a wink and his trademark smile, along with a thumbs up. He’d never be able to truly repay them for what they’d helped him with, not the least of which was getting his parents off his back about getting married. The ponies in turn flashed their own winks and smiles with raised hooves, the closest they could get to a thumbs-up without actually having thumbs.
Finally, the last star of the royal procession reared his ugly head, as a cart guarded by Elite Canterlot Guardsponies rolled behind the newlyweds showed off Sable Loam. He was of course still dead, but as per minotaur tradition the beast that the groom had slain as part of his eligibility ritual was to be shown off during the wedding, then taken to be displayed in the married couple’s home as a hunting trophy. Due to King Minos being a stickler for tradition, Celestia had been convinced to allow Sable’s corpse to be taxidermied and publicly displayed. However, due to the unknown properties of Sable’s body as a result of it harboring dark magics over the course of a thousand years, the body was still a well of unknown possibilities, none of them good. It had been agreed upon by all parties that after the wedding, Sable’s body (and all extracted entrails and bodily fluids) would be shipped back to Canterlot under heavy guard to be sealed away, and a duplicate dummy of Sable’s body, virtually indistinguishable from the original if simply looked at, would instead be displayed at the couple’s discretion.
But as the body of Sable Loam trundled along in front of the minotaur masses, it was a humiliating end to the original werewolf who had terrorized Equestria for almost an entire millennium. The beast who had once dreamed of ascending to the throne atop Celestia’s broken corpse and beginning an age of werewolves as its king, now had been reduced to nothing more than a public spectacle that didn’t even give any indication to how Sable’s mind had been far more dangerous than his physical attributes. A fitting end for the disgraced former Royal Guard scout.
One month later…
“Yessir, these here apples are the sweetest, juiciest, and tastiest of their kind for miles around!” said Applejack, beaming with pride towards her crop.
“Seriously, dad,” said Sandalwood, “just get some, I can confirm that Sweet Apple Acres apples are everything she says!”
Sandalwood’s father; Sea Shanty, tapped his hoof to his chin. “Well, what do you think, dear?”
The unicorn next to him laughed. “Shanty, honey, it wouldn’t hurt to get some. I mean, they’re obviously not poison apples or anything.”
Something in the unicorn’s manner of delivery rubbed Applejack the wrong way. “Hey! You sayin’ mah crop is bad or somethin’?”
“What? Oh, no no no no!” apologized the unicorn, “I didn’t mean anything of the sort! My name may be Burnin’ Sarcasm but that doesn’t apply to everything I say!”
Sea Shanty just rolled his eyes knowingly and put some apples into his saddlebags before putting a good little amount of bits on Applejack’s stand. Surprisingly, Applejack moved to push some bits back.
“You’re Sandalwood’s parents, and Ah’m still in her debt after all her help she gave me while Ah was goin’ through some…personal issues. The least Ah can do right now is to give y’all a discount on mah stuff.”
“Well, gee, thanks Applejack!” said Sandalwood. “Now, come on mom and dad, I’ve got to introduce you to Pinkie Pie over at Sugarcube Corner. She’s a real character!”
“From how you’ve described her in your letters, she sounds like somepony I’ll like!” laughed Sea Shanty.
As Sandalwood and her parents walked away, Applejack couldn’t help but feel pangs of jealousy for Sandalwood being fortunate enough for her parents to still be alive. To be able to hug her, to kiss her, to cherish-
No thought Applejack, that’s not being fair to Mom and Dad. While the physical means of expressing love had disappeared for Appleseed and Cornflower a decade ago, they still remained as more than a mere memory. They were still out there, watching from above, caring and worrying about Applejack and the rest of her kin.
The rest of the day was simple enough; the orange farm pony sold some more apples to various locals but not all of her stock. When the time came, Applejack loaded up the unsold crop into the barrels and hitched up to the cart. She began the trek home, taking care at that one fork to go the right way home and not to end up at the Meatery.
As she continued to walk home, she noted it felt almost exactly the same as the night months ago when the CMC had crashed their car into the Everfree, the night it all had begun when Sable Loam, seeing the form of his lover reincarnated with Applejack, deviated from his plans and cursed her with lycanthropy for the longest months of her life. She’d only been free of the curse for about two months now, having last seen Sable’s stuffed corpse during the Minotaur Wedding, but thankfully the only remnants of that condition were her sleeping fits where she kept waking up and fearing she would find she’d transformed back into a wolf, and even those had finally begun to fade away. Long gone were her involuntary actions such as a constantly wagging tail or her need to consume meat, that latter of which she was extremely relieved to have dropped.
Out of habit, after she’d stored the unsold apples, Applejack went to the barn where Apple Bloom’s mechanical abomination had once been sealed. Now it was referred to as ‘the garage’, for the vehicle had permanently changed into the Apple Truck thanks to Twilight, now currently sitting inside and waiting to be useful again.
With the truck not going anywhere, Applejack then turned her attention to another part of the farm, this time a place much more sacred. There, in the rose-covered private cemetery of the Apples, the former werewolf sat down in front of the graves of her parents. Taking caution to avoid the thorns, Applejack plucked two roses and placed one on each grave.
Suddenly, she felt the urge to look skyward. Doing so, she saw two familiar orbs streaking across the sky.
“G’night mom. G’night, dad.” Said Applejack, smiling.
The moment was of course then interrupted by Apple Bloom’s shouts of “APPLEJACK! SUPPER!”
“AH HEAR YA, BE RIGHT THERE!” shouted back Applejack. Then, after watching the shooting stars disappear into the night sky, the restored Earth pony turned and dashed to the kitchen door to take her place at the Apple Family dinner table.
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You sir, are the absolute master of tying up a good story
, Iron will got his wedding, Applejack is at peace, and that bastard is humiliated for all eternity 
Yesss. Now AJ just needs her cardboard standee of Twilight for the truck....
well, that was a good story, though i wonder what there is left to do as all the loose ends seem to have been tied up very nicely...so y is this still labled 'incomplete'? unless ur going to pull something that make AJ have a relapse, but that would be a dick move...
Whatever you say, Sugarsube.
This feels like an epilogue but it's not complete? You got me intrigued!
HOLD IT! this chapter sounded WAY too much like an ending, yet the story is still incomplete!
SOMETHINGS GOING TO HAPPEN! and it probably won't be good (for the characters, I mean)!
maybe.....SABLE'S A ZOMBIE!! or someone stole some of the werewolf juice! or the death of the final werewolf opens a portal to hell and resurrects Sombra!!!! OR MAYBE--
Aaah, a fitting end for a douchebag like Sable the Werewolf. This chapter wrapped everything up greatly. Sad to know that this is the end, but it was a good run. Great job with this!
C&Cs:
This chapter has a few wall-of-texts, so you may want to do something about them.
...I’ve got to introduce you to Pinkie Pie over at Sugarsube Corner.
> Correction: ‘Sugarcube’.
While the physical means of expressing love had disappeared for Appleseed and Cornflower a decade ago...
> Remove the extra space.
2968598
Thanks!
2968606
2968984
2969905
I can confirm the sequel will have 100% more Cardboard Cutout Twilight Sparkle.
2968630
Oh, there are loose ends, just well disguised ones.
2973119
Thanks! Although, as mentioned above, this isn't the end.
Also, the walls of text kind of were a necessity due to the build up of Sable's public humiliation as the final part of Iron Will's wedding, which was in a country that I'd barely even touched upon when IW joined the narrative.
3006976
Oh, just wait until you find the other scenes where comparisons are drawn between my Sandalwood and the original DJ. The differences may surprise you.
3028549
Nope, it's a reference to Dwarf Fortress, which the game Dwarfs was "very loosely based" on...
The tale of Boatmurdered is one of the classics in DF community. Check it out if you wish.
A very nice story overall. A fun read, a minor hiccup or two in places, but it smoothed out very well. Thank you for the time and energy put into this.
I really liked it, but personally, i feel like i got effed in the ass at the end, because Applejack is awesome, and even more so as a werewolf. I would have preferred something along the lines of she decided to stay a werewolf and learn to control it to give them a better rep, or that night when nopony was looking, she turned and took a run in the woods. Just my own opinion. All in all, great story! Keep on writing.
Aha! Glamdring and Foe Hammer!
Do they have a pet known as Beater?
3707372
That's because everybody got the other one I made in the sequel
Part 2 of my review is done! Check it out!
i.imgur.com/6MrWqNZ.png
It's true. Red makes everything ~20% faster.
~Twi
4100067
Awesome, thanks for approving my story!
Seriously, the best, well-put-together werepony or werewolf story I Have. Ever. Read.
Okay; this was a nice story.
Thanks for it.
4253742
You're welcome. Don't forget to check out the sequel
4253758
Later. 116k words is enough for one day.
Besides, I really want to use this long weekend to organize my workshop. For example: last week I discovered that I haven't used my saw table in more than a year. Considering that I no longer own a business relating to woodwork, I should just get rid of it. On the other hand, the table itself is fine where it is, but I can get a buck by selling the almost-new engine, and the rest of the machine, as surplus.
Besides, I'm going bananas to clean my personal files. Somebody told me the other day, after taking a look at them: "one thing is to be organized, but another is to keep math homework that is old enough to have pimples." Ouch.
4352894 it could be that they're a completely different species from each other.
4377579
Actually, that's not an anime reference. Angel Beats is the name of a character from The Golden Armor by Comet Burst. It's not mentioned but the other pony and the griffon she's with are also from the same fic. Used with permission, of course.
oh I just spedread through the whoel thing it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo awesome! make Moar now!
4690862
No. He uses his hooves. Because that's what I'm guessing is the way ponies milk cows.
Bravo.
4746346
Oh, you'll see why later on.
4746770
...unless you mean in the sequel, then no, I still don't really see a good reason. I mean, obviously going completely public would be a bad idea, but that's not really what I meant. No reason at all not to warn Applejack herself, for instance. You know, so at least she's not going to painfully transform into a werewolf without any warning whatsoever.
Because that always ends well.
4748210
Except they didn't have any concrete evidence that this was related to lycanthropy at the time, and Applejack wouldn't believe she was going to turn into a werewolf anyway. After all, she didn't know that's part of the reason her parents died, which was kept from the Apple family's kids because the fact their parents were slowly turning into monsters would have been received quite poorly by AJ and Apple Bloom.
4748350
Treat it like any other kind of disease. Do you just say, "Well, I don't have proof that it's this exact life-threatening illness, it could be something less severe, so I just won't say anything and hope for the best."
Or do you lay out the possibilities, and point out symptoms that should be watched for, so that if the worst does come to worst, the patient recognizes it and seeks immediate medical attention instead of ignoring the symptoms or panicking?
Of course, that would kill about three quarters of the plot, at least.
4811223
Dainty Dish is from the Higher Flier series by Admiral Tigerclaw.
The first one
The (incomplete) sequel
4811223 Actually, Sandalwood was borrowed from Shinzakura's All American Girl. She's known as DJ Martinez, because that's her name given by her adoptive human parents. Sandalwood was her name given by her biological parents, one of whom is Rarity. BTW, these gags with Sandalwood are funny if you read All American Girl, like her dream of her being Rarity and her distaste of meat
4811259 4811516
Please reply in the chapter that the comment was originally posted in. Cross-chapter replies do not trigger a Notification, and thus can be easily missed by their intended recipient.
...also, I really need to read those two stories. They have both been on my "Read Later" stack for ages!
4898445 Well, if you wanna read the collab fic between shinzakura and bluebastard: Seven Days in Sunny June, you can, but be warned that by book 2 of said fic, reading both books of a Hairy Problem is mandatory
4899071
I am going through this series in order, so it'll be a while before I get to Seven Days. That said, my post was actually referring to Higher Flyer and All American Girl as the two fics that have been on my Read Later pile for a coon's age.
Just finished this story and i loved it, I shall now continue on in the set
5118310
I actually find that comparison ironic, given the inspiration for this fic was during the opening minutes of a MST3K episode I was watching along with some friends from a pony forum. The movie being riffed was Werewolf, but...well, just watch the cold open and pay attention to what Mike is saying. It should be easy to figure out what transpired from there.
I just realize the other reference I forgot, the big one that NO ONE seems to get. The Gundam reference. I forgot
5118828
Hmmm, I got to and watch that eppie again
5192403
At two different times in the first season, she's seen feeding fish...and also feeding fish to ferrets.
I didn't read Pony POV, but in a way it's more of a comment about how people seem to think Fluttershy is totally against harm coming to any creature to the point she'd be incapable of feeding dead creatures to other animals...when she outright does it in the show. Fluttershy may be pure and innocent in her love of all creatures big and small, but she's not oblivious to their needs of feeding on each other.
Jeeze, Sable Loam...what an ahole, right? I mean, think of what could happen if Fair Vista came back?
You know, it was interesting doing a live rea of this along with the sequel. It showed off how your writing style improved as well as show a difference in stories. This, was a good (probably one of my favorites) werewolf story, while the other was a good tale about light and dark. This made it so that the two mixed together wonderfully into one great whole.
I love how the characters were done, with everypony in character. But, I want to focus on AJ here, I love her in this. In here we see the strong and weak side of her. We see that she is the pillar of the team for a good reason, she believes she can take it. The worst comes to her, she will will brace it, others have problems, she will burden it, and if she has a problem of her own, she will burden it. Though we see that the lessons that he has gained from previous episodes still apply here, she is still ready to go into "It's my problem, Ah can handle it" mode. Why? Because that is who she is, but at the same time, we see her rely on her friends (Wich, some of the friendship scenes were really well done in my opinion.)
Sable Loam was an ok villian, I love that we did see some sides of him and saw his backstory, but...this was not his story.
The comedy was, excellent. I found myself laughing several times during it and I also loved Sandalwood.
Also, I know I compared this to the Howling eariler, and it is true. A lot of the Werewolf tropes that we see here are there. The dealing with the transformation and how it got started are cheif among them. However! This was also a fic that made me think of the first werewolf movie I had ever seen, "American Werewolf in Paris." I know what you said about the inspiration for it, but some of the stuff is there. The comedy (heh) have some similar beats, the reactions are similar, and how the cure is given is the same. Not that this is bad...This just made the fic more fun.
In short, I loved going through this and I was glad to live read it. Now, I am going to leave my first chapter up for everyone else to enjoy...
...Ps. Yes, I will be doing the sequel one day.
5227126
Thank you for enjoying my story! AHP was my first foray into fanfic writing and in truth, when it was originally posted, the first two chapters actually hadn't been edited before being put up and when I finally did remember to address that, they were so poorly written and I think one of them involved a hyperlink image joke that was so dumb I couldn't believe I ever thought that had been a good gimmick to use.
And funny you should say this;
given AJ's first "change" was loosely based from the transformation scene in that film. I watched it like 30 times on YT simply to get a grasp on just how to apply it as happening to an individual who already was a quadruped.
Just finished reading this at Shinzakura's recommendation. I won't lie, this type of story usually isn't my thing, and the one reason I stuck with it is its apparent connection to 7DISJ. However, let me preface the rest of this comment by saying that I did ultimately enjoy this story, but it had its share of problems.
As previously noted, the earlier chapters make it very apparent that this is your first pony story, and much of the middle felt like filler, in particular the chapters taking place during Spike at Your Service (I still don't understand why people like rewriting the episodes so much. It's really only worth it if you plan on doing things much more differently than in the show). There was a lot of spelling and grammar problems that eventually got way better, but even in the final chapters things like character names not being capitalized really took me out of it. There were also too many instances of over explaining things in the prose (show don't tell). Then there's the fact that too much of the story was driven by characters holding onto the idiot ball. The one thing I'm not sure whether I liked or not was the abundance of references. While I smiled at the ones I understood (I still don't think anyone else picked up on who the "Angel Starr" guard pony was named after), it seemed that almost all of the ones I didn't get were really heavy handed and took me out of the story.
That being said, the story really picked up in the final quarter or so, and I found myself genuinely hooked until the end. There was a lot less "telling," the characters were much more believable and everything came together very nicely. I liked the role Sandalwood and Lyra played, as well as Iron Will's whole sub arc. There were plenty of funny gags (Iron Will having a flex-off with the manticore downright killed me) and the ending was quite satisfying. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel now, not only to see where the story goes, but to see how you've grown as a writer!
5264183
Thanks, your words mean a lot to me! I'm aware that I made many mistakes early on because, as you say, this was my first story, and trust me; the first two chapters were a LOT worse before I learned the story was up for Twilight's Library inclusion and were in terrible need of being made at all passable.
The character names not being capped is a surprise, though, how they went this long without being caught is beyond me and if you could help point out where the caps are missing, I'd greatly appreciate it!
5264314 Sorry, but as far as the missing capitalizations are concerned, there's just so many and they're so spread out that I'd probably need to reread the whole thing to find them all.
5266476
Well, you said it only really popped up in the final chapters, so if you could ballpark estimate where the non-capitalization starts in terms of which chapter, I can work from there.
5266531 Ah, what I meant was that even though most of the other errors got better in the later chapters, the capitalization problems remained throughout even the later ones (and were present in the earlier chapters along with the other errors). Though, I think the first time I really started noticing them was the chapter Iron Will was introduced in (chapter 7?). He was the biggest offender as far as names not being capitalized go, as it seemed every other mention of his name either left his first or last name uncapitalized. I'm pretty sure I saw Applejack's name uncapitalized a couple of times as well (around the chapters involving Lightning Dust mostly. Again, don't quite remember which ones those are).
5266716
Hmm, I'll have to go through all of them, then. Guess I know what I'm doing come Thanksgiving break!
I was gonna read seven days in sunny June but I'm gonna start at the very beginning. How do you go from a story about werewolf Applejack to a Sunset Shimmer as a protagonist story? I have no idea but I shall soon find out. Wish me luck as I dive headfirst into this madness. Who knows I may enjoy it.
5384561 *Lego Island's release October 1997*
*Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, the first instance of Orks 1987*
Yup, that joke has indeed been around far longer than the orks.
5384600 hey am I not allowed involuntary moments of stupid. Plus reading numbers wrong. Whoops. Oh well. Not the first time I've made myself out to be an idiot.
5391755 Yup.