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It Could Have Gone Better · FiM Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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In Tambelon Comes The Hungry Darkness
In the darkness, there was only one.

Then a brilliant flash, as moonlight reflecting off a blade, and there were two.

“Finally,” rumbled Lord Grogar, Ruler of the Realm of Darkness, and Demon Necromancer. He straightened up and checked his immaterial body, strong and tall compared to the smoking ruin of his mortal flesh a short distance away. The shattered remnants of bells still hung around his neck, and the tip of one horn remained missing, but the sneer of victory even in his defeat remained.

The floating spectre at his side did not say a word, but remained standing where she had swung the smoldering scythe. Spectral winds blew the scraps and tatters of her encompassing robes in flowing waves behind her, highlit by the blue flickers of flame from her scythe.

“Enough of this, Death. Take me to Erebus as you have before.” Grogar scowled at the immobile spectre, stepping closer and snorting smoke. “Well? Always have you been a well of witty remarks and threats before throwing me into your blasted pit. Have you finally abandoned your duty?”

A sneer raised one corner of his translucent lips as Grogar regarded the dark wood and glittering blade of the scythe, which floated up in front of Death as if to be swung a second time. Then the figure shook her head, ever so slowly.

“What?” Grogar struck down with one cloven hoof and made the immaterial ground beneath them tremble with his might. “You are a slave to duty, bound by chains too great to break. Transport my soul where it is destined to go so that my minions may reunite it with my body in due time. Look.”

As he spoke, the robed goats and ponies of Grogar’s living minions continued to creep out from concealment, retrieving the charred bits and scattered chunks of their lord’s mortal flesh and carrying them away like a trail of ants.

“Soon they will cast the unspeakable rituals and retrieve my soul from darkest Erebus,” gloated Grogar. “It will be a pleasure to dismember these heroes one by one, and feast upon their screams. I shall have my revenge, and shall not repeat my errors of centuries ago. The bearded one shall fall first, torn limb from limb by my creations, and the rest will scatter like roaches. Or perhaps I should strike the new heroes who fought by their sides.”

He gnashed sharp teeth and pawed at the immaterial ground. “Yes, I shall start with the yellow one next time. Her screams will distract the others as I pull her wings apart and plunge boreworms into the wounds. Eaten out from the inside until she is an undead slave, a fitting fate for such impudence, and the spawn of her infestation will be used to devour the rest of her companions. Yes, I can hear their screams even now.” Grogar glared at Death, who had not moved. “Take me to Erebus now, blasted spectre!”

“No.” This time Death spoke aloud, the rasp and grate of dry bones making a hoarse voice, barely over a whisper. The spectral wind around them picked up to a frigid gust, making the streaming tatters of her robes seem to be immaterial fingers clawing away at an unseen victim, and the scythe rose higher in front of her, carried by a glaring blaze of dark magic.

The spirit of Grogar was not deterred, and glared back with a vicious snarl. “Do not toy with me, spectre! Even you will not be outside of my grasp once I defeat these heroes and drain their lives into my power. You too will be a slave to my will, just as much as you are powerless to use that scythe against me. The rules are unbreakable. You cannot harm me. The bond between you and your scythe prevent you from raising it—

The scythe swept down once. Twice. Thrice. Then uncounted times in a featureless blur, leaving the sundered fragments of Grogar’s spirit drifting on the wind while burning bright blue until there was nothing left.

“Justice.” The dark spectre lifted a hoof and swept back the cowl from over her face, revealing a dark alicorn whose mane flowed with glitters of stellar light. “You were a fool, old goat. Never once did you consider that the robe and scythe could be borrowed from a good friend who I had not seen in a long while.”
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#1 · 1
· · >>axxuy >>georg
Headcanon: This story’s title is also the title of an album in Starlight’s childhood room.

I’m not sure how well the chronology works out with this one given “Shadow Play,” but it’s awesome regardless. Though it’s not clear why Luna would have a voice made raspy by dry bones. Some inelegant sentence structure here and there, but overall, I like both the ending and how the Pillars took care of more than just the Sirens and Stygian.
#2 · 2
· · >>georg
I guess the punchline here is that Luna is a friend of Death for some reason? I'm not sure I understand why that's the case, and the story hinges on me buying that fact. This is a creative tale but I'm not sure I get it entirely.
#3 ·
· · >>georg
“Justice.” The dark spectre lifted a hoof and swept back the cowl from over her face, revealing a dark alicorn whose mane flowed with glitters of stellar light. “You were a fool, old goat. Never once did you consider that the robe and scythe could be borrowed from a good friend who I had not seen in a long while.”


Ah, the magic of friendship.

Not all of the details come through clearly, though. It wasn't until I read >>FanOfMostEverything that I realized
The bearded one shall fall first
was referring to Starswirl and not Discord. That was just me, though, and it was more obvious rereading it, do it isn't a serious issue by any means.
#4 · 1
· · >>georg
I'm probably just dumb, but much of this flew over my head.

I understand that the details are kept vague for the sake of ending, but that's kind of cheating. Like how did Luna even get here? What connections would she have to Death (who is a living persona now) to get his scythe?

It's questions like these that distract me while reading the story, which in a way is a good thing because it encourages me to go back and re-read it, but the problem is that I didn't feel compelled enough from the first go around to re-read.

One word to describe this entry would be "esoteric," which is saying something considering how cryptic (intentionally or not) some of the other entries have been. This one, though? It really goes all in.

The ending was pretty cool, though, makes Luna out to be a real badass.

I just wish I had enjoyed more of what led up to that point.

I'm feeling a strong 6 to a baby-bum 7 on this.
#5 ·
· · >>georg
This is not bad, per se, and I'm totally onboard for Luna knowing the Grim Reaper. The characters are depicted convincingly; I had a clear idea what kind of monster Grogar was early on, and the fic kept that up well. Buried under all this is a range of great ideas, such as Grogar's necromancy powers over Death, and the way his resurrection works. There's also a layer of un-pony darkness here that I can dig.

Some of the dialogue's got a bad case of "as you know" syndrome, wherein the way some characters speak is clearly only there to give exposition they themselves already know. For example, the very last line of the fic from Luna is unbelievably unnatural in how it elucidates her relationship with Death, and Grogar's main speech after "Finally," is riddled with the stuff. Next time, I think you should either work it into the dialogue more reasonably (say, by having it prompted by another character who doesn't, in fact, already know) or just do yourself a favour and come out and say it outside the dialogue. There's no shame in the narrator explaining things to us instead of the characters; at least with narrators, we expect them to be unnaturally informative.

On a minor note, I got who the bearded one was. I just think it's less problematic to just call him Star Swirl. Why dance about it?

Did like the way Grogar instantly targeted Fluttershy as his number one victim. What a bastard! No complaints there (I'm kinda sick).

I'd put this at the middle of the pack. It's not shabby by any means, with plenty of meat to chew on, but the style of delivery for that meat is really inelegant. And while I won't penalize a fic for having no arc or development (hey, that stuff's hard to do, I get it), this didn't even really have a strong tone. It wanted one, with its posthumous setting and talk of necromancers and gory revenge, but the language could use more figurative techniques to evoke a dark, cruel, bleak tone. At the mo, it's kinda too dry to pull it off completely.
#6 · 1
· · >>georg
A darker story is the great palate cleanser after all these comedies. I really like what you've got going on with the imagery and mood here.

Grogar's voice comes across very strongly, here. In fact, it might actually be a little too strong. A couple of times, his bellowing dialogue combined with the hulking descriptions feel almost over-the-top. During my first read-through, there were moments where I thought that the story might be a comedy. But take this with a grain of salt, because this might just be my brain being stuck on comedy after seeing so many this round.

One other thing that could use a brush-up is the last paragraph. It does feel a little explain-y, with Luna doing the whole "talking to no one" act. It might be a better idea to do her reveal before Grogar dies, so that she can talk directly to him and make it feel less like she's speaking for the sake of the audience.

Other than that, though, I think you've got a very enjoyable work here. It manages to make itself feel significant within the wordcount of a minific, which is no simple feat.
#7 ·
·
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>Trick_Question
>>axxuy
>>No_Raisin
>>BlueChameleonVI
>>Bachiavellian
FanOfMostEverything : The voice comes with the cloak. Face it, Death pays for the best FX. Thankfully, I cleaned a lot up in the transition to the FimFiction story. And I can’t help but think of Cozy Glow as being one of the innocents ‘rescued’ by the summoned Nightmare.

Trick Question, Axxuy, No_Raisin - Much of it flew over Grogar’s head too. Until the end.

BlueChameleon - I was kinda trapped by the situation to do it in dialogue. Keeping Grogar active and directed was my main goal, until it was too late.

Bachiavellian - Of course Grogar is coming on strong. He’s a villian after all, a dark necromancer who binds the souls of the damned. He’s not going to sound like Fluttershy. Or at least I would hope not. :) (Now that would be a spoiler: Cozy Glow is actually Grogar.)

The last para is actually a break point, not an ending. Nothing like looking back at your first draft and saying, “Darn, only overshot by… double the word count. Oh, well. That means it is publishable.”

Yeah, when I was cleaning this one up for publication, I had to muse through every line to un-clunk them. (can’t believe nobody caught that Death had a hoarse voice… sigh) There’s *still* little bits and dabs that need work, but that’s the way with everything, I suppose.



“It is over, Little One. Remain here with your eyes closed. I must return, now that my task is complete.”

“Am I going to be punished, Mister Scary Voice?” asked Cozy Glow, who huddled in the back of her cage with her eyes tightly closed. “The goats, they always told me what to do and threatened to punish me if I disobeyed them, but they always punished me anyway.”

There was a dry silence, followed by the hissing voice again. “No, Little One. They will not punish you any more. You are free.”

“And I can leave the cage?” asked Cozy Glow, still trembling in her corner. “Promise?”

“Yes, you can leave the— Oh.” There was a keening noise, followed by a series of loud clangs as if several steel bars had just been dropped onto the stone floor of the dank cave. “Now you may leave the cage. Do not injure yourself on the sharp edges,” it added with obvious nervousness.

“And I can open my eyes?” Cozy shifted positions and turned partially around so her nose was no longer pressed into the corner of the cage. “It’s not going to be scary or anything, is it Mister Voice?”

There was a long pause, broken only by the sound of dripping fluids across the cave and the possible sound of a prenaturally sharp scythe going about the business of severing the souls from the recently departed in the immediate vicinity.

“I will guide you,” hissed the voice. “Only out of the cave, and no further.”