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We Rest In The Penumbra
“Your Highness, where do our dreams go when we wake up?”
I remembered being asked that most intriguing question by a young filly when I accompanied my sister on her visit to an academy not long after my return to Equestria. It was not the first time I have heard of that question; I have asked the question myself several times when I was at a similarly tender age. Such was the curiosity of a child: a ponderous and perilous beast, well-intentioned as it may be.
My mentor at that time, the esteemed Lady Canary, persistently stated that such questions are best answered at the appropriate time and place. She was a stern yet benevolent teacher, strict with her discipline yet cordial outside her regimen. Beneath her eternally-youthful appearance hid wisdom that the kings of old have waged wars over, for she was a master in oneiromancy, and was the only one of her kind back in the day. She had wished to impart her knowledge onto me once she learned of me being newly crowned as the Princess of the Night, and though I had been apprehensive of her punctilious methods as much as I was of the responsibility of possessing the knowledge itself, I soon became fond of her, and she of me.
Knowing the burgeoning wealth of her wisdom, it only beseeched me to ask that question, and every time I did, I would either be gently disappointed or severely admonished. Either way, by the end, she would make the same promise: that she will not only tell me where our dreams go but show me as well.
Suffice to say, she kept it.
The earliest memory I had of the place was a garden of marble columns and overgrowing hydrangeas. I found my mentor seated by a glass table in a cerulean dress, beckoning me over to indulge in an enlightening conversation over eucalyptus tea.
The Lady Canary had called this place the Penumbra. The road to her discovery of this place was familiar, for she too had asked her mentor this very question and was guided down to this very same realm. The Penumbra existed at a niche in the periphery between the dreams and nothingness. It was a place where all the dreams of the world constantly converge to bleed into the nothingness; a place so terrifyingly treacherous and dissonant that even creatures like the Tantabus refuse to tread upon.
At the surface, The Penumbra was a stitched quilt of all the world’s relinquished dreams. The aforementioned garden, Lady Canary confided to me, was dreamt up by one of the castle’s gardeners, but the hydrangeas specifically were from a young filly living somewhere southwest of Applelachia. The table and dress she wore were leftovers from the nightmares of a Saddle Arabian princess in an arranged marriage, the eucalyptus tea said aristocrat’s hoofmaiden.
Altogether, I was viewing what I believed was a most pleasant vignette, of which I had made it known to her after the fact. Nonetheless, the Lady Canary was adamant that the Penumbra, though harmless at first glance, was extremely dangerous, and made it exceptionally clear to me that I must not enter it without her supervision. Being the curious filly I was, I often wondered why that was the case, especially as our visits to the Penumbra became increasingly common as the months went by.
In time, I began to learn why.
Lady Canary decided to bring me deeper into the Penumbra a few nights after I turned thirteen. The precautions she took before leading me in were ridiculously inordinate, even for her. However, I quickly understood the need for that the moment we delved inside.
Everything in there was misshapen, some grossly conspicuous, others deceptively subtle. Wherever I looked, I was met with sight after uncanny sight—serrated trees, slithering flowers, pulsating rocks—yet what caught my eye were these translucent silhouettes roaming all around, squirming and crawling about the devolving world like spiders with twisted legs.
Lady Canary had called them the Mýrarhryssur. They were haemorrhaging vestiges of ‘living’ creatures that were borne of those who dreamt them, be it a forest animal, a monster from a nightmare, or even another pony. Much like with everything else, their convulsing forms were amalgamations, a blackened shadow of all the world’s dreams. They have no sense of self, their only prerogative being to wander about until their eventual fate of being swallowed slowly and painfully by the abyss.
I had to watch it happen alongside her once, as part of my lessons. Let it be known that there can only be so many hours of shrieking and screeching and squelching a young teenage mare should tolerate before breaking down into an inconsolable mess.
Thinking back, I should have wondered at the time about why the Lady Canary thought it imperative that I witness their dissolution, about how it was relevant to my lessons in dream-walking. My qualms then were brief, for I firmly believed she had only the best interests at my heart.
It was on the night of my fifteenth birthday when Lady Canary decided that I was ‘at that age’ to visit the deepest vestibules of the Penumbra, the final place where everything ends up. After all her extensive precautions, she was leading me across the plateau of disfigurations once more.
Our destination proved to be a small rotunda in the middle of a gaping emptiness. Stone steps lead down to the middle the inkiest, murkiest pool of bubbling black, the stench wafting from it akin to a mix of boiled flesh and rotting eggs. Surrounding the water’s edge was more of the Mýrarhryssur, yet these were frozen in genuflection; statues in prayer around a pool in a macabre rangoli.
“This is it,” my mentor spoke. “This is where all our dreams go to rest.”
She then stepped forward and, before I could stop her, dipped a hoof into the water. A sizzle, before the blackness began surging up her veins. Almost immediately, her flesh began to melt away, her bones beneath flaking into dust. Her pores spurted black, her decaying form looking like a ruptured beehive.
“The power I taught you, the power you have now, is a borrowed one. There will come a time that it has to be returned. Here, at the end.”
She smiled back at me. It was eyeless. The ink spewed from her sockets.
“My teacher did the same when she passed all the knowledge she had, as did her teacher before her. Tonight comes mine. One day, your time will come too.”
Nevertheless, she looked at peace, as if it was meant to be.
“And when that time comes, when you’ve passed on all your knowledge of this realm to your successor, you know what to do.”
Lady Canary passed later that night. I was not present, but the records state that the guards found her in her quarters being seized and held up by an invisible force, her voice drawn out into a long and low croak as her form was plucked away, piece by piece, into nothing. Her demise lasted three hours.
I rarely returned to the Penumbra ever since. I still see the Lady Canary sometimes, beckoning me to join her, to relinquish my royal duties and take a dip. I am still asked that question time after time, of where our dreams go when we wake up, and my answer was always the same.
“They go to sleep. They rest.”
I remembered being asked that most intriguing question by a young filly when I accompanied my sister on her visit to an academy not long after my return to Equestria. It was not the first time I have heard of that question; I have asked the question myself several times when I was at a similarly tender age. Such was the curiosity of a child: a ponderous and perilous beast, well-intentioned as it may be.
My mentor at that time, the esteemed Lady Canary, persistently stated that such questions are best answered at the appropriate time and place. She was a stern yet benevolent teacher, strict with her discipline yet cordial outside her regimen. Beneath her eternally-youthful appearance hid wisdom that the kings of old have waged wars over, for she was a master in oneiromancy, and was the only one of her kind back in the day. She had wished to impart her knowledge onto me once she learned of me being newly crowned as the Princess of the Night, and though I had been apprehensive of her punctilious methods as much as I was of the responsibility of possessing the knowledge itself, I soon became fond of her, and she of me.
Knowing the burgeoning wealth of her wisdom, it only beseeched me to ask that question, and every time I did, I would either be gently disappointed or severely admonished. Either way, by the end, she would make the same promise: that she will not only tell me where our dreams go but show me as well.
Suffice to say, she kept it.
The earliest memory I had of the place was a garden of marble columns and overgrowing hydrangeas. I found my mentor seated by a glass table in a cerulean dress, beckoning me over to indulge in an enlightening conversation over eucalyptus tea.
The Lady Canary had called this place the Penumbra. The road to her discovery of this place was familiar, for she too had asked her mentor this very question and was guided down to this very same realm. The Penumbra existed at a niche in the periphery between the dreams and nothingness. It was a place where all the dreams of the world constantly converge to bleed into the nothingness; a place so terrifyingly treacherous and dissonant that even creatures like the Tantabus refuse to tread upon.
At the surface, The Penumbra was a stitched quilt of all the world’s relinquished dreams. The aforementioned garden, Lady Canary confided to me, was dreamt up by one of the castle’s gardeners, but the hydrangeas specifically were from a young filly living somewhere southwest of Applelachia. The table and dress she wore were leftovers from the nightmares of a Saddle Arabian princess in an arranged marriage, the eucalyptus tea said aristocrat’s hoofmaiden.
Altogether, I was viewing what I believed was a most pleasant vignette, of which I had made it known to her after the fact. Nonetheless, the Lady Canary was adamant that the Penumbra, though harmless at first glance, was extremely dangerous, and made it exceptionally clear to me that I must not enter it without her supervision. Being the curious filly I was, I often wondered why that was the case, especially as our visits to the Penumbra became increasingly common as the months went by.
In time, I began to learn why.
Lady Canary decided to bring me deeper into the Penumbra a few nights after I turned thirteen. The precautions she took before leading me in were ridiculously inordinate, even for her. However, I quickly understood the need for that the moment we delved inside.
Everything in there was misshapen, some grossly conspicuous, others deceptively subtle. Wherever I looked, I was met with sight after uncanny sight—serrated trees, slithering flowers, pulsating rocks—yet what caught my eye were these translucent silhouettes roaming all around, squirming and crawling about the devolving world like spiders with twisted legs.
Lady Canary had called them the Mýrarhryssur. They were haemorrhaging vestiges of ‘living’ creatures that were borne of those who dreamt them, be it a forest animal, a monster from a nightmare, or even another pony. Much like with everything else, their convulsing forms were amalgamations, a blackened shadow of all the world’s dreams. They have no sense of self, their only prerogative being to wander about until their eventual fate of being swallowed slowly and painfully by the abyss.
I had to watch it happen alongside her once, as part of my lessons. Let it be known that there can only be so many hours of shrieking and screeching and squelching a young teenage mare should tolerate before breaking down into an inconsolable mess.
Thinking back, I should have wondered at the time about why the Lady Canary thought it imperative that I witness their dissolution, about how it was relevant to my lessons in dream-walking. My qualms then were brief, for I firmly believed she had only the best interests at my heart.
It was on the night of my fifteenth birthday when Lady Canary decided that I was ‘at that age’ to visit the deepest vestibules of the Penumbra, the final place where everything ends up. After all her extensive precautions, she was leading me across the plateau of disfigurations once more.
Our destination proved to be a small rotunda in the middle of a gaping emptiness. Stone steps lead down to the middle the inkiest, murkiest pool of bubbling black, the stench wafting from it akin to a mix of boiled flesh and rotting eggs. Surrounding the water’s edge was more of the Mýrarhryssur, yet these were frozen in genuflection; statues in prayer around a pool in a macabre rangoli.
“This is it,” my mentor spoke. “This is where all our dreams go to rest.”
She then stepped forward and, before I could stop her, dipped a hoof into the water. A sizzle, before the blackness began surging up her veins. Almost immediately, her flesh began to melt away, her bones beneath flaking into dust. Her pores spurted black, her decaying form looking like a ruptured beehive.
“The power I taught you, the power you have now, is a borrowed one. There will come a time that it has to be returned. Here, at the end.”
She smiled back at me. It was eyeless. The ink spewed from her sockets.
“My teacher did the same when she passed all the knowledge she had, as did her teacher before her. Tonight comes mine. One day, your time will come too.”
Nevertheless, she looked at peace, as if it was meant to be.
“And when that time comes, when you’ve passed on all your knowledge of this realm to your successor, you know what to do.”
Lady Canary passed later that night. I was not present, but the records state that the guards found her in her quarters being seized and held up by an invisible force, her voice drawn out into a long and low croak as her form was plucked away, piece by piece, into nothing. Her demise lasted three hours.
I rarely returned to the Penumbra ever since. I still see the Lady Canary sometimes, beckoning me to join her, to relinquish my royal duties and take a dip. I am still asked that question time after time, of where our dreams go when we wake up, and my answer was always the same.
“They go to sleep. They rest.”
I wonder what Freud would say about all this.
Something I liked:
Horror is a hell of a genre to do justice, author. Even more so than comedy it relies on getting reactions out of the reader that defy rationality, which means some people (like myself) won't find this entry creepy at all. But, with that said, I would have a hard time denying how conceptually interesting this is. You use Luna as sort of a Lovecraft protagonist, where she's more an observer than a player, and what happens is we observe the eeriness and darkness of the Penumbra as she does. I don't think this story would work so well if it was told in any other fashion. Not to mention you capture Luna's voice so well.
Something I didn't like:
You can take the following criticism with a grain of salt, since my brain isn't wired in such a way as to be susceptible to this specific brand of horror, but I honestly think you went overboard with the climax. The idea is that Canary's fate is unbelievably agonizing, and that Luna's fate will eventually be the same, but you could... I guess go about describing it in more creative ways? The part where ink spewed from her eye sockets made me think, "Come on. You can do better." If you want some real spooky shit, I'd recommend honing in on the conceptual darkness of the Penumbra more.
Verdict: I respect this entry more than I actually enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it won't do well.
Something I liked:
Horror is a hell of a genre to do justice, author. Even more so than comedy it relies on getting reactions out of the reader that defy rationality, which means some people (like myself) won't find this entry creepy at all. But, with that said, I would have a hard time denying how conceptually interesting this is. You use Luna as sort of a Lovecraft protagonist, where she's more an observer than a player, and what happens is we observe the eeriness and darkness of the Penumbra as she does. I don't think this story would work so well if it was told in any other fashion. Not to mention you capture Luna's voice so well.
Something I didn't like:
You can take the following criticism with a grain of salt, since my brain isn't wired in such a way as to be susceptible to this specific brand of horror, but I honestly think you went overboard with the climax. The idea is that Canary's fate is unbelievably agonizing, and that Luna's fate will eventually be the same, but you could... I guess go about describing it in more creative ways? The part where ink spewed from her eye sockets made me think, "Come on. You can do better." If you want some real spooky shit, I'd recommend honing in on the conceptual darkness of the Penumbra more.
Verdict: I respect this entry more than I actually enjoy it, but that doesn't mean it won't do well.
I'd like to like this story, but it drags on like a kiss with a needy girlfriend who you want to break up with but can't be bothered because there's nobody else to date in your little town so why bother. And her kisses taste like stale cigarettes and coffee. Except the cigarettes are fancy words. And the coffee is long paragraphs. Thanks, but I want my kisses without bitter ash flavors.
Or maybe switch to cocaine and weed to make it a long strange trip.
Or maybe switch to cocaine and weed to make it a long strange trip.
Genre: G̶̮̥̠̭͎͎̯̐ȍ̵͖̦̳̠̳̔r̷͔͓͌g̷̝̿̇̃͒͋ė̸̟̪̹͙̺͕̈́̐ͅo̵̠͔̰͚̿̈́̇̉̀̉̓ų̷͈͍͚̆͝s̶̛̗̲̮̒̀́̓͘ ̴̼̹͙̃͝P̵̮͇̉͐͆͗̿̈́r̸̢̛̰͔̠͚̗͇͑̌̂͘o̵̢̝̳̯͚͋ͅs̶͓̩͗̄̇̀͘ȇ̷͚̣͎̪̱̒͌̑́͋͝
Thoughts: This story wins several million style points with me for its unrelenting torrent of vocabulary. Obviously every story in this contest has been written, but this one carries the feeling of having been Written. As for why, once again I find myself concurring with the esteemed >>No_Raisin: this is extremely Lovecraftian in style and approach.
This leaves me in something of a weird place, though. As Raisin points out, there’s a fundamental question of whether this kind of horror works for the reader or not.
To me, it absolutely does; I’m happy as can be with it in terms of delivering the horror of the Penumbra, and of Lady Canary’s fate. But then I’m still sometimes unsure why I’ve emerged as a bit of a fan of specifically pony horror, as opposed to almost any other kind of horror. There as here, I struggle to quantify why it works as well as it does for me—but make no mistake, this does. Lady Canary’s meltdown (hurr hurr) struck that perfect balance of horrifying unto itself, and horrifying because she’s at peace with her eternal suffering. Brr, man; that gives me the horror-tingle.
Still, subjective reception aside, I maintain that this makes ambitious and successful use of the language to portray its dark, alien, yet visceral setting in ways that are unlike anything found elsewhere in this contest. Though there are one or two moments where the verbiage’s reach exceeds its grasp, such as: “However, I quickly understood the need for that the moment we delved inside.” That’s just a bit redundant, with “I quickly learned” and “the moment” right next to each other.
Still though, for the few lines I could call out for minor quibbles like that, there are countless more that are vivid and clear. The end result strikes me as being not merely chilling, but memorable.
...And then you look back at the title AND GET CHILLED AGAIN
Tier: Top Contender
Thoughts: This story wins several million style points with me for its unrelenting torrent of vocabulary. Obviously every story in this contest has been written, but this one carries the feeling of having been Written. As for why, once again I find myself concurring with the esteemed >>No_Raisin: this is extremely Lovecraftian in style and approach.
This leaves me in something of a weird place, though. As Raisin points out, there’s a fundamental question of whether this kind of horror works for the reader or not.
To me, it absolutely does; I’m happy as can be with it in terms of delivering the horror of the Penumbra, and of Lady Canary’s fate. But then I’m still sometimes unsure why I’ve emerged as a bit of a fan of specifically pony horror, as opposed to almost any other kind of horror. There as here, I struggle to quantify why it works as well as it does for me—but make no mistake, this does. Lady Canary’s meltdown (hurr hurr) struck that perfect balance of horrifying unto itself, and horrifying because she’s at peace with her eternal suffering. Brr, man; that gives me the horror-tingle.
Still, subjective reception aside, I maintain that this makes ambitious and successful use of the language to portray its dark, alien, yet visceral setting in ways that are unlike anything found elsewhere in this contest. Though there are one or two moments where the verbiage’s reach exceeds its grasp, such as: “However, I quickly understood the need for that the moment we delved inside.” That’s just a bit redundant, with “I quickly learned” and “the moment” right next to each other.
Still though, for the few lines I could call out for minor quibbles like that, there are countless more that are vivid and clear. The end result strikes me as being not merely chilling, but memorable.
...And then you look back at the title AND GET CHILLED AGAIN
Tier: Top Contender
Very nice. Well written, loved the theme, the execution, everything about this one is good. It makes for a good horror “beneath the surface” kind of tale.
Ok, first order of business, against the grain, the writing really, really didn't work for me. It screams purple prose, and although I guess it could work in certain situations this was not one of them for me. I get that authors are free to distinguish their characters from the in-show characters, but even the difference between this and S1 Luna is jarring to me. Plus, did people from the time period you'd expect them to speak like this actually speak like this? Probably not. The sentence wording was also confusing at points, but I guess it went hand in hand with the rest of the prose.
Without the prose, did I think the story was well written? Yes, and no doubt you're a stronger writer than I. Lovecraftian horror ain't my thing but I really enjoyed the pacing, characters, and scenic descriptions. The conclusion was also captivating, but I was left with a couple questions and I think that it could've been done a little better.
Thanks for the entry, anon!
Without the prose, did I think the story was well written? Yes, and no doubt you're a stronger writer than I. Lovecraftian horror ain't my thing but I really enjoyed the pacing, characters, and scenic descriptions. The conclusion was also captivating, but I was left with a couple questions and I think that it could've been done a little better.
Thanks for the entry, anon!
I really enjoyed this piece. I think the prose matches Luna's voice fairly well, and the horror that is explored with it is just up my alley. Just enough description, a good pace, and a good look at a potentially frightening aspect of dreams that lies beyond anyone's understanding, except for Luna and her next potential student. That said, I don't know if the horror of Lady Canary's downfall quite hits me as hard as the unnerving things like the Mýrarhryssur and the oddities of the Penumbra, though the line about her vanishing "piece by piece" is chilling to imagine.
Before I go into it, congratulations to my fellow winners >>CoffeeMinion and >>No_Raisin, and really to everyone else for delivering a great set of entries for this group's first-ever round! Regardless of the rankings, it was really nice to see all the neat ideas that everyone had under their belt so thanks to everyone for participating!
Without further ado, here's:
We Rest In The Penumbra: The Retrospective
Coming away from the prompt, I had a couple of ideas in mind. Half of them had horror, which I'm beginning to find that it's a genre I keep falling back on whenever I'm just winging it. Some part of me really didn't want to write a horror story for this contest, especially since it's the first-ever round in a contest set up by none other than CoffeeMinion, whom I'm aware had read some of my past horror stories back on FimFiction, so I was a little self-conscious into serving something that was 'safe', to say the least.
After pondering about it for a day, I went ahead with it in the end, partially to get me out of my block, but also because I think ultimately it's better for me to post something that I'm certain I would be passionate about than to post something I'm unsure of, or even worse, not post at all.
Surprisingly, it took me a while to really figure out the story itself. Going into it, I was only sure of a few things: the opening line and Luna being involved. Everything else was just stuff that I picked up as I began to type away.
The role of Canary came next. Initially, I was opting her to be Luna's student instead but I soon realized that there wouldn't be enough words for that version(s) of the story that'll leave me satisfied with how it turned out. In the end, I switched her role to be of Luna's mentor in dreamwalking.
Fun fact: her name came from the saying 'canary in a coalmine', which I guess everyone can figure out as to why I went with it in the end.
The Penumbra was next. I wanted to tie it to Luna and Canary's student-teacher relationship while at the same time answering the opening question. I also want the experience to be something life-changing to Luna, something that will stay with her even after a thousand or so years. As a result, the whole Lovecraftian aspect began to come out. Funnily enough, the whole part about the powers of dreamwalking being borrowed was something I just tacked on after realizing I was beginning to run out of words.
I think if there's really one thing I wanted to explore as I wrote this, it would be the creatures— the Mýrarhryssur. The name was a lucky find while playing around with Google Translate. The word is in Icelandic and roughly translates to 'swamp-mares'. I brought them up to kinda give Luna a reference point to watching something die in the Penumbra which would then be built upon by Canary's death in the end, though I don't think I managed to do that. It's something I'm definitely working on in my expanded entry.
The ending was also rather rushed for my taste as well. There's a lot of changes made to how it should go and a lot of consequences here that I had to leave out even after I've settled on this one. I also really, really wanted to bring Celestia into play, but I didn't think it's something that'll fit within the wordcount so I scrapped it. I'm seeing if I could somehow slip it in for my expanded version though. Might need to figure out how it would work out.
Once everything's done, I submitted it in two hours before the deadline and spent the next half an hour rereading it over and over again to iron all the wrinkles away, though I see that some of them slipped the cracks.
Overall, I'm kinda happy with what I've ended up with. There's a lot I wanna explore here, which I'll get around to it as soon as I'm done. I'm thinking of putting it up in the Discord chat for you guys to look it over before posting it on FimFic though. Would love to get everyone's opinions on the final draft before unleashing it out onto the Interwebz.
So yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about Penumbra right now! Thanks for reading it, and for reading this stupidly-long retrospective as well!
Now then, onward to individual responses:
>>No_Raisin
I swear, Lovecrafian horror is going to become my calling card throughout these comps.
I pretty much agree with you on the ending. There's this one whole scene I prepared where she doesn't just melt into a puddle of muck. Hard to give a proper sendoff when you're running low on words, which really was why I fell back to that whole bit with the ink leaking out and stuff in the end. The actual ending will tie back with the whole Penumbra gig, maybe with a bit more gruesomeness for good measure.
Thanks for your comment!
>>Señor Alta Cruz
Bitter ash flavors are part and parcel with my work, unfortunately. No amount of cocaine or weed can mask that.
Thanks for your comment!
>>CoffeeMinion
Really glad you liked it! Was well aware ever since you've reviewed Copper Cicada (remember that?) that pony horror is your cup oftea coffee, so I'm glad it panned out well. Also, thanks for the editing catch!
I do wonder about whether or not there'll be an exclusive sister group / subgroup in the FimFic WriteOff group for our particular set of entries. Could probably help out with promoting future events.
>>Moosetasm
Glad to hear you liked it! Thanks for the comment!
>>_Moonshot
I have this habit of purple-prosing even in my most mundane stories, so your criticism really is justified. Luna's voicing here was drawn really from the more recent MLP episodes (nothing from the latest season though) as well as some stories on FimFic, namely Cynewulf's Exit Interview.
I do wonder what questions you were left off with by the end of this story. It may really help me out in expanding this story.
Thanks for the comment!
>>Flashgen
Glad to know that you liked it! As I've mentioned to Raisin above regarding the ending, it was something I fell back to because of the wordcount. I do want to tie it back to the Penumbra and give it a little bit more gruesomeness to really hit it home.
Once more, thanks again to everyone who participated, especially to those who commented and reviewed, be it here or in the Discord chat! Was really nice to hear everyone's thoughts on it! I'll be working on expanding this story soon-ish. I'll share it on Discord once it's in its final stages.
Here's to future rounds!
Without further ado, here's:
We Rest In The Penumbra: The Retrospective
Coming away from the prompt, I had a couple of ideas in mind. Half of them had horror, which I'm beginning to find that it's a genre I keep falling back on whenever I'm just winging it. Some part of me really didn't want to write a horror story for this contest, especially since it's the first-ever round in a contest set up by none other than CoffeeMinion, whom I'm aware had read some of my past horror stories back on FimFiction, so I was a little self-conscious into serving something that was 'safe', to say the least.
After pondering about it for a day, I went ahead with it in the end, partially to get me out of my block, but also because I think ultimately it's better for me to post something that I'm certain I would be passionate about than to post something I'm unsure of, or even worse, not post at all.
Surprisingly, it took me a while to really figure out the story itself. Going into it, I was only sure of a few things: the opening line and Luna being involved. Everything else was just stuff that I picked up as I began to type away.
The role of Canary came next. Initially, I was opting her to be Luna's student instead but I soon realized that there wouldn't be enough words for that version(s) of the story that'll leave me satisfied with how it turned out. In the end, I switched her role to be of Luna's mentor in dreamwalking.
Fun fact: her name came from the saying 'canary in a coalmine', which I guess everyone can figure out as to why I went with it in the end.
The Penumbra was next. I wanted to tie it to Luna and Canary's student-teacher relationship while at the same time answering the opening question. I also want the experience to be something life-changing to Luna, something that will stay with her even after a thousand or so years. As a result, the whole Lovecraftian aspect began to come out. Funnily enough, the whole part about the powers of dreamwalking being borrowed was something I just tacked on after realizing I was beginning to run out of words.
I think if there's really one thing I wanted to explore as I wrote this, it would be the creatures— the Mýrarhryssur. The name was a lucky find while playing around with Google Translate. The word is in Icelandic and roughly translates to 'swamp-mares'. I brought them up to kinda give Luna a reference point to watching something die in the Penumbra which would then be built upon by Canary's death in the end, though I don't think I managed to do that. It's something I'm definitely working on in my expanded entry.
The ending was also rather rushed for my taste as well. There's a lot of changes made to how it should go and a lot of consequences here that I had to leave out even after I've settled on this one. I also really, really wanted to bring Celestia into play, but I didn't think it's something that'll fit within the wordcount so I scrapped it. I'm seeing if I could somehow slip it in for my expanded version though. Might need to figure out how it would work out.
Once everything's done, I submitted it in two hours before the deadline and spent the next half an hour rereading it over and over again to iron all the wrinkles away, though I see that some of them slipped the cracks.
Overall, I'm kinda happy with what I've ended up with. There's a lot I wanna explore here, which I'll get around to it as soon as I'm done. I'm thinking of putting it up in the Discord chat for you guys to look it over before posting it on FimFic though. Would love to get everyone's opinions on the final draft before unleashing it out onto the Interwebz.
So yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about Penumbra right now! Thanks for reading it, and for reading this stupidly-long retrospective as well!
Now then, onward to individual responses:
>>No_Raisin
I swear, Lovecrafian horror is going to become my calling card throughout these comps.
I pretty much agree with you on the ending. There's this one whole scene I prepared where she doesn't just melt into a puddle of muck. Hard to give a proper sendoff when you're running low on words, which really was why I fell back to that whole bit with the ink leaking out and stuff in the end. The actual ending will tie back with the whole Penumbra gig, maybe with a bit more gruesomeness for good measure.
Thanks for your comment!
>>Señor Alta Cruz
Bitter ash flavors are part and parcel with my work, unfortunately. No amount of cocaine or weed can mask that.
Thanks for your comment!
>>CoffeeMinion
Really glad you liked it! Was well aware ever since you've reviewed Copper Cicada (remember that?) that pony horror is your cup of
I do wonder about whether or not there'll be an exclusive sister group / subgroup in the FimFic WriteOff group for our particular set of entries. Could probably help out with promoting future events.
>>Moosetasm
Glad to hear you liked it! Thanks for the comment!
>>_Moonshot
I have this habit of purple-prosing even in my most mundane stories, so your criticism really is justified. Luna's voicing here was drawn really from the more recent MLP episodes (nothing from the latest season though) as well as some stories on FimFic, namely Cynewulf's Exit Interview.
I do wonder what questions you were left off with by the end of this story. It may really help me out in expanding this story.
Thanks for the comment!
>>Flashgen
Glad to know that you liked it! As I've mentioned to Raisin above regarding the ending, it was something I fell back to because of the wordcount. I do want to tie it back to the Penumbra and give it a little bit more gruesomeness to really hit it home.
Once more, thanks again to everyone who participated, especially to those who commented and reviewed, be it here or in the Discord chat! Was really nice to hear everyone's thoughts on it! I'll be working on expanding this story soon-ish. I'll share it on Discord once it's in its final stages.
Here's to future rounds!
>>WritingSpirit
I'm gonna try to be as thorough as I can, so some of this is gonna be super nitpicky. Obviously not all of this has to be answered; what fun is a piece if it doesn't leave the readers with any questions left to ask? :P
What compelled the Mýrarhryssur to wander around, then presumably commit suicide in the first place?
How did Luna watch them get claimed by the abyss before she turned fifteen, if that abyss was from the rotunda?
Why was Lady Canary okay with this? How did she feel when she saw her mentor getting claimed?
Why are some of the Mýrarhryssur frozen around the rotunda instead of being claimed within it?
I find the phrase "It was eyeless" interesting, because it's the only one that refers to Lady Canary as an "it". I was curious if this had any significant meaning.
What is the overall purpose of the Penumbra, if Luna had to rarely return to it afterwards?
Is the vision of Lady Canary real? If so, why is she beckoning to Luna if Luna does not have a student to teach the Penumbra to yet?
If Luna is basically immortal, how will the Penumbra factor into her future?
I'm gonna try to be as thorough as I can, so some of this is gonna be super nitpicky. Obviously not all of this has to be answered; what fun is a piece if it doesn't leave the readers with any questions left to ask? :P
What compelled the Mýrarhryssur to wander around, then presumably commit suicide in the first place?
How did Luna watch them get claimed by the abyss before she turned fifteen, if that abyss was from the rotunda?
Why was Lady Canary okay with this? How did she feel when she saw her mentor getting claimed?
Why are some of the Mýrarhryssur frozen around the rotunda instead of being claimed within it?
I find the phrase "It was eyeless" interesting, because it's the only one that refers to Lady Canary as an "it". I was curious if this had any significant meaning.
What is the overall purpose of the Penumbra, if Luna had to rarely return to it afterwards?
Is the vision of Lady Canary real? If so, why is she beckoning to Luna if Luna does not have a student to teach the Penumbra to yet?
If Luna is basically immortal, how will the Penumbra factor into her future?
>>_Moonshot
These are honestly some excellent questions, the nitpickier the better. I definitely have the proper answers for almost all of them. Whether or not they'll be answered in my expanded version is still up in the air, though I'll be hinting towards it throughout.
What compelled the Mýrarhryssur to wander around, then presumably commit suicide in the first place?
Honestly, nothing much. The Dream World here is depicted to have a storage limit, so all the dreams that were over will be discarded. The Mýrarhryssur are living creatures that were dreamed up and are left behind when the pony wakes up from the dream, so when they lost their purpose, they're just wandering around aimlessly until they too get viscerally discarded by the Penumbra.
How did Luna watch them get claimed by the abyss before she turned fifteen, if that abyss was from the rotunda?
All of that dying happens outside the rotunda. Think of it as an everyday sight in the Penumbra.
Why was Lady Canary okay with this? How did she feel when she saw her mentor getting claimed?
Like with her mentor before her, Lady Canary came to an understanding that the power should be returned. Why specifically, I don't think it's a question this story will answer. It's something that Luna herself doesn't have the answer to, even after speculating for a thousand or so years.
As for how Lady Canary felt when she saw her mentor being claimed, I'd like to think that she reacted the same way Luna did in this story. She came around to it though, the mystery of which is exactly what I believe will help this story be compelling.
Why are some of the Mýrarhryssur frozen around the rotunda instead of being claimed within it?
It's something that the Penumbra decided to keep. I wanted to mention that the rotunda was actually built by the first dreamwalker to indicate where to go when their job is done, but alas I had to leave it out.
Does the 'it' in "It was eyeless" have any significant meaning?
The 'it' here refers to her smile. Yeah, it doesn't really have any other meaning besides that. Cool thought, though.
What is the overall purpose of the Penumbra, if Luna had to rarely return to it afterwards?
The Penumbra's just there to discard old dreams to make way for new ones. It doesn't need Luna for it to work. In fact, it's been there long since before Luna or Canary or really anyone else even.
That's really the thing with cosmic / Lovecraftian horror. It highlights just how insignificant our existence, or in this case, Luna's existence really is in the grander scheme of things. It doesn't have a moral compass or need a purpose, it's just a force of nature. A weight placed to balance out the scales of the Dream World.
Is the vision of Lady Canary real?
It wasn't really clear in this story, but no, this is just a version of Lady Canary that Luna dreamt up herself from time to time to gather her thoughts and bring some logic into what is really an illogical situation. I also wanted to write out a part where Luna has a recurring nightmare of Lady Canary beckoning her into the pool as well. The real Lady Canary is long gone.
If Luna is basically immortal, how will the Penumbra factor into her future?
That's really the small light at the end of the tunnel. With Luna being immortal, there's no need for her to pass it on, which means she doesn't need to dip herself into the pool. It's something that I'll bring up during her discussions with her projection of Lady Canary as I've mentioned in the previous question.
What it means to have no successor, however, will be something weighing on Luna's mind for eternity. What would the Penumbra do? Would it wreak havoc upon the real world? Would it just dissipate and leave all the dreams to start piling up? It'll be a dilemma she's going to need to live with for the rest of her life unless she chooses to pass it on, which would entail her going skinny-dipping. That's really what she's grappling with here.
So yeah, hope those answers will suffice! Thanks again for your questions, the whole process of answering them really helped me with reclarifying the direction of this story for me.
Hope to see you again in the next round!
These are honestly some excellent questions, the nitpickier the better. I definitely have the proper answers for almost all of them. Whether or not they'll be answered in my expanded version is still up in the air, though I'll be hinting towards it throughout.
What compelled the Mýrarhryssur to wander around, then presumably commit suicide in the first place?
Honestly, nothing much. The Dream World here is depicted to have a storage limit, so all the dreams that were over will be discarded. The Mýrarhryssur are living creatures that were dreamed up and are left behind when the pony wakes up from the dream, so when they lost their purpose, they're just wandering around aimlessly until they too get viscerally discarded by the Penumbra.
How did Luna watch them get claimed by the abyss before she turned fifteen, if that abyss was from the rotunda?
All of that dying happens outside the rotunda. Think of it as an everyday sight in the Penumbra.
Why was Lady Canary okay with this? How did she feel when she saw her mentor getting claimed?
Like with her mentor before her, Lady Canary came to an understanding that the power should be returned. Why specifically, I don't think it's a question this story will answer. It's something that Luna herself doesn't have the answer to, even after speculating for a thousand or so years.
As for how Lady Canary felt when she saw her mentor being claimed, I'd like to think that she reacted the same way Luna did in this story. She came around to it though, the mystery of which is exactly what I believe will help this story be compelling.
Why are some of the Mýrarhryssur frozen around the rotunda instead of being claimed within it?
It's something that the Penumbra decided to keep. I wanted to mention that the rotunda was actually built by the first dreamwalker to indicate where to go when their job is done, but alas I had to leave it out.
Does the 'it' in "It was eyeless" have any significant meaning?
The 'it' here refers to her smile. Yeah, it doesn't really have any other meaning besides that. Cool thought, though.
What is the overall purpose of the Penumbra, if Luna had to rarely return to it afterwards?
The Penumbra's just there to discard old dreams to make way for new ones. It doesn't need Luna for it to work. In fact, it's been there long since before Luna or Canary or really anyone else even.
That's really the thing with cosmic / Lovecraftian horror. It highlights just how insignificant our existence, or in this case, Luna's existence really is in the grander scheme of things. It doesn't have a moral compass or need a purpose, it's just a force of nature. A weight placed to balance out the scales of the Dream World.
Is the vision of Lady Canary real?
It wasn't really clear in this story, but no, this is just a version of Lady Canary that Luna dreamt up herself from time to time to gather her thoughts and bring some logic into what is really an illogical situation. I also wanted to write out a part where Luna has a recurring nightmare of Lady Canary beckoning her into the pool as well. The real Lady Canary is long gone.
If Luna is basically immortal, how will the Penumbra factor into her future?
That's really the small light at the end of the tunnel. With Luna being immortal, there's no need for her to pass it on, which means she doesn't need to dip herself into the pool. It's something that I'll bring up during her discussions with her projection of Lady Canary as I've mentioned in the previous question.
What it means to have no successor, however, will be something weighing on Luna's mind for eternity. What would the Penumbra do? Would it wreak havoc upon the real world? Would it just dissipate and leave all the dreams to start piling up? It'll be a dilemma she's going to need to live with for the rest of her life unless she chooses to pass it on, which would entail her going skinny-dipping. That's really what she's grappling with here.
So yeah, hope those answers will suffice! Thanks again for your questions, the whole process of answering them really helped me with reclarifying the direction of this story for me.
Hope to see you again in the next round!