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Harmony is Clockwork
Long ago, before the wonderful world called Equus, there was everything, and so there was nothing.
The world was full of gods and goddesses. No one died, and so no one lived. There were no sun and moon, but a single, unmoving light in the sky that made the whole world shine like burning copper.
That was how things had always been, and anything else was unthinkable. But for one Lady Goddess and her Five Daughters, it was not enough.
The Lady had had a dream; the First Dream. She woke from her dream and saw the sad, unending state of the world around her, and gathered her daughters to help her change it.
Together they built the First Clock. The other gods and goddesses were amazed, as for the first time, the passage of one moment to another could be measured. Thus, change was introduced to the world; the idea that something could be one way at one time and another at the next.
The Lady and her daughters didn’t stop there. Working together, they split the great light in the sky into two, a greater and a lesser, and set them to move across the sky in time with the Clock.
From that moment on, nothing was ever the same again. The Lady’s daughters led the people in planting trees around the clock, squeezing water from the sky to nourish them, and creating many wondrous things with their magic. For the first time, the people of the world were happy.
But the nature of change is in endings as well as beginnings, and one cannot know joy without knowing sorrow.
The Lady died, just as the world she named Equus was becoming more wonderful than ever before or since, and her daughters knew the time of gods and goddesses was over. They grieved for their mother, and counseled together on what they should do next.
Some felt guilt for introducing the change that caused their mother to go away.
Some were sure that their mother’s decision to introduce change was right.
One still hoped her mother would change back.
They all agreed that something must be done, before this most horrible change claimed any more of their friends. But what?
The hopeful daughter, the meekest of all, finally spoke up.
She said that life was like the two lights they had set in the sky. Before splitting the great light their mother had tried to move it on its own, but found it could not budge so long as it was alone. It had to be divided; two lights of opposite natures, forever in opposition, to chase each other endlessly and never meet, all the while measuring the passage of days.
Just as the greater light must go away for a while, she said, our mother has left us. But we know nothing stays the same forever, and so we know that one day she must come back.
Her sisters fell silent as they learned to feel hope for the first time.
They swiftly agreed, then, that change in the world must never be allowed to cease. The Clock must be protected, lest the measurement fail and the world become stagnant once more.
And so the Harmonious Clock was sealed away at the bottom of the world, until the day the Five Daughters meet their Mother once more.
“The Harmonious Clock? You found it?”
“So my children tell me, sir scholar,” the great Pegasus Lord Radiant Beam growled, scowling down at his two heirs seated beside him in the opulent parlor of his manor. The young stallion and mare didn’t appear troubled in the least; as far as Quiet Time had seen, scowling seemed to be their father’s neutral expression. “But that is why we have summoned you here from the North, to inquire in the mine and ascertain whether or not such an artifact is in my lands.”
Quiet Time bit his lip and looked back down at the old storybook on the low table in front of him. In the schools he taught in in the North, the story of the Clock was regarded as an insubstantial myth to explain the movements of the sun and moon. There were many different versions of it; some had six daughters instead of five and some only had two, and for some reason in the far West it was told with two mothers. This particular copy was admittedly ancient and rich with detail and symbolism, but it didn’t make this claim any more credible. No true scholar of the North seriously believed the Clock actually existed.
Still, Quiet thought, looking back at the grandfather clock on his hip, his Character Mark; there is something special about that story.
“My daughter was very persistent about calling in a scholar. In fact, she recommended you specifically. She spoke at length of your authority on the subject,” the lord went on.
Quiet looked quickly up at his new patron, then stole a glance at his daughter. Sky Light was smirking at him mischievously.
“I was very impressed by your knowledge and abilities when we were students together. Perhaps you remember me?”
Lord Beam raised an eyebrow over his daughter at her odd tone, and Quiet Time silently prayed to the goddesses that he wouldn’t blush. Sky Light’s younger brother, Ancillary, shook his head and shifted subtly to face away from his sister.
Sky Light sat straighter on her couch. “Of course, I’ll be going with you to verify this for myself.”
Lord Beam’s head whipped back around to face his daughter again. Quiet suspected that he and his host were equally startled by Sky Light’s declaration. Radiant Beam voiced no objection, however, and Sky Light met his ever-present scowl with a sweet smile.
With a cough to clear his throat, Lord Beam turned back to Quiet Time. “Well, scholar? What say you?”
Quiet took a moment to gather his thoughts, looking at the nobleman and his family sitting before him; Lord Beam in his glimmering golden breastplate, sitting more than a full head taller than his children; Ancillary, full-grown yet still smaller and more frail than his sister, with a Character Mark of a constellation on his dark coat and inquisitive eyes that made Quiet suspect this book about the Clock came from the boy’s own collection; and Sky Light, gold and white and draped in blue finery, lounging on her couch and fixing him with a lidded gaze.
It’s not hard to tell why she wanted me to come, Quiet thought to himself. But what of this find? An underground forest at the bottom of a mine, and word of strange happenings in the skies above? Ancillary at least seems to think that points to the resting place of the Clock.
And that, at least, is worth taking a look.
“I’ll do it,” he said with a small smile and bright eyes.
“It ain’t natural. They were right to seal it up.”
Quiet Time felt like pounding his head on the counter, or pounding down another drink. One of those proved more appealing than the other, and he motioned to the unicorn behind the bar who was the source of his early headache. She paused on her way to the other end of the counter, smirked, and passed him an entire pitcher in a dark red glow.
“Natural or not, it’s been ordered unsealed.” Sky Light was sitting next to him at the bar, and was almost as frustrated. “These decisions are your lord’s to make, not yours.”
“All I’m saying is it was the right one. Y’all didn’t see the smoke in the sky like we did. Came right out of nowhere, at just the same time they broke through that wall and found those trees. It got to where it was casting shadows on the ground, and folks swear they heard growling coming from the thick of it before they got wise and sealed the hole back up. You watch; you open up that cave again and the smoke’ll be back, thicker than ever. We’ll all be choked out or eaten up or goddesses-know-what before you so much as hear ticking from any dratted clock. Not that anyone has the right to meddle with such things anyway, on principle.”
“Bah, you don’t really care about that, Song,” came a voice from behind, triggering a chorus of chuckles from the sparse, dirty crowd in the tavern. Quiet looked over his shoulder to see a dark pegasus mare darkened further by soot, with her legs on a table, grinning at the barmaid. “The sun being drowned out by sky monsters is just more fun to complain about than taxes. Or am I not supposed to say that in front of nobility? Oops.” She turned her grin to Sky Light, who only lifted her lip a smidge and looked down her nose at the mare. “Heck, I’ll take you down to the breach if you’re really wanting to go. Open it up for you, too. Name’s Shady Patch. My brother and I’ll make sure you come outta there as clean and perfect as when you went in. Hey, Presto! Come— The heck d’you think you’re doing?”
Quiet followed Shady Patch’s livid glare to another corner of the room, where a young unicorn just a shade lighter than his sister was looking up in surprise from some odd wooden baubles on a table, across from a hunched, suddenly very grumpy-looking brown Earth Pony stallion.
Shady Patch swung her legs off the table and stood up. “You oughta know better than to play anything against old Sawdust! And you!” The stallion turned away and frowned deeper. “You oughta know better than to try anything like that with kin o’mine! You put those dirty dice away and pray you don’t have anything on you that’d more rightly be in my brother’s bag instead of yours!”
“I told you to wait and try him when she’s not in the same room, Sawdust,” the barmaid said with a helpless smirk.
“Shut up, Song,” said Shady Patch, walking briskly to her terrified brother. “You’re encouraging both of them. Maybe we oughtn’t to come here anymore. Waste enough of our money the honest way without losing it at dice. Come on, kid. We’re leaving.”
Quiet exchanged a glance with Sky Light next to him. “Are you still going to take us through the mine?” she asked, leaning back to see past Quiet.
“Yeah, yeah. Just give us an hour to gather up what we need, and we’ll meet you back here. And I expect to be well paid!”
“Let ‘er rip, kid!”
Quiet Time squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears tighter as Shady Patch’s silent brother, Star Presto, was knocked back on his rear by the purple blast that came from his horn. A rush of dust swept up through the rocky tunnel toward them, and Quiet felt a surge of adrenaline as a shower of loose pebbles rained down on his head for a moment.
Quiet heard coughing from multiple throats, and then the angry voice of Sky Light through the haze. “If you—”
Sky Light was suddenly cut off as a blast of warm air came from the same direction as the dust, flushing it all away and leaving the tunnel clear once more. Quiet listened as the air wave howled through the rest of the mine behind them.
“What was that?” Sky Light asked, all urgency gone from her voice.
“Couldn’t say for certain,” Shady Patch answered, righting the lantern that had been knocked over. “You usually get a little gust when you break into a cave, but never anything like that. I think I remember one of the other guys saying something like this happened the first time they opened this up. Kinda strange that it happened again after only a week or two being sealed, for how big this cave’s supposed to be. We all still here? No one got blown away or eaten by escaping sky monsters? How about you, quiet guy?”
“Here,” Quiet answered.
“Woah.”
Quiet Time, Sky Light, and Shady Patch all turned to see Star Presto framed in the dark hole he had made at the end of the tunnel. Quiet stepped up to join him.
“Woah.”
To Quiet Time’s eyes, he had stepped out of the mine and into an open valley at nighttime. He knew he hadn’t, though, because it had only been late afternoon when they entered an hour ago, and there was no way the sun had gone down already at this time of year.
Above him was a field of stars, though there were no constellations he recognized. The backdrop they were set in seemed darker than a natural night sky. He couldn’t see a moon anywhere.
What little light there was seemed to come from a layer of odd smoke that floated at about his eye level, and stretched off into the distance. The smoke appeared to give off its own gentle light, which allowed Quiet Time to see what sat below the smoke.
As his eyes adjusted and he squinted to see more clearly, Quiet gasped.
The valley floor was a tangled mess of… things. He supposed they must have been trees, but they were like no trees he had ever heard of. These ones grew almost on top of each other, at every angle imaginable. They twisted and curved and turned in odd directions. The canopies were draped across the branches in a wet sort of way, and he couldn’t tell what sort belonged to which tree. Some seemed to have hanging strings and ropes instead of proper leaves.
The trees all grew so close together that Quiet had no idea what was underneath their canopies. The air in the valley was absolutely still and quite warm, but he thought he saw faint movement in the distant darkness.
Quiet was startled from his reverence by the whisper of Sky Light next to him. “Incredible. Do you think it could really be the Sealed Forest?”
“Who can say?” he whispered back.
A noise from the tunnel behind him caught Quiet’s ear, and he looked back. He thought he could feel a cool breeze coming from the mine that he hadn’t felt before. He stepped away from his patron and his guides, and strained to make out the faint sounds.
Quiet thought he could hear a noise like a pony exhaling heavily, and as he listened closer, he also heard echoes of what sounded like shouting.
“Miss Patch?”
Shady snorted. “Wasn’t quite expecting to be called ‘Miss’ at a time like this. You’re spoiling the moment, quiet guy. What’s up?”
“Listen!”
Shady Patch cocked an eyebrow, then an ear towards the tunnel. Both sounds had gotten more noticeable. The first now sounded like an entire crowd blowing to cool their soup, and the second was definitely loud voices. They sounded frightened.
“Miss Patch?”
Shady Patch shushed him, narrowing her eyes in concentration. “Wait here!” she said to the group after a moment, then she flapped her wings and flew back into the tunnel and left the three of them alone on the empty slope, under the strange stars.
Quiet Time exchanged nervous glances with Sky Light and even Star Presto as the noise continued to increase in volume, faster and faster. The breathing had become a high roar, and the voices had become less frequent.
Finally, they heard the voice of Shady Patch from a distance. “There it is! Presto! Get them away from the tunnel, fast!”
They didn’t need telling twice, and the three of them took off running down the slope.
From the tunnel came a great wordless shout of multiple voices at once, and the ground began to rumble.
As the shaking and noise reached its peak, the mouth of the tunnel erupted in a gout of brown water. It began to cascade down the hill, and the three stunned explorers below quickly realized they had evacuated in the wrong direction.
Quiet Time turned and ran downhill for all he was worth, the terror of tripping up in the low light at the forefront of his mind.
Beside him, Sky Light took to the air and came above him, grabbing him around his middle and picking him up off the ground.
“Wait!” Quiet protested. “Presto!”
Out of the black sky swooped Shady Patch, scooping up her poor brother just as the pounding flood crashed into the rocky slope he had just occupied.
“Star! Block it!” Shady Patch shouted, turning back up the hill.
Star Presto’s horn lit up as his sister carried him over the entrance to the mine, and a large portion of the hill above it collapsed, closing the tunnel once again. Small jets of brown water still shot out from between the rocks, but they slowly relaxed in pressure and became clearer in color until they became mere trickles, combining into a stream following in the wake of the flood.
The majority of the water reached the treeline below, and a wave of motion spread through the treetops, accompanied by many rather ominous noises.
Sky Light set Quiet down on a jutting rock, and went off to another part of the hillside. Quiet watched her go, and realized what she was doing.
Two other figures were lying farther down the hill. One was deep red, and was lying flat and still. The other was brown, and was hunched over the red one and moving anxiously. Sky Light alighted next to them, and knelt down as well. They were joined by Shady Patch and Star Presto, and Quiet Time realized he was all alone on his rock. He jumped down and carefully made his way through the mud to the others.
When he got to them, he found progress had been made with the motionless red figure, who he realized was Song, the barmaid from the tavern. Sky Light and Shady Patch were already questioning Sawdust, the other figure who had been trying to revive Song.
“It’s gone, Patch. It’s all gone by now.”
“Are you sure?” Shady Patch demanded. “You didn’t see it!”
“You saw what came after us. It was even worse up above. Only a minute after the smoke came back, and water started falling from the sky. It was as if there was a whole lake up on top of the mountain, and something broke and sent the whole thing through town. Everything’s been washed off the cliffs by now. Some of us made it into the mines, and pegasi flew off with whoever they could carry.”
Song coughed, still lying flat on her back. “Told you. Told you all.”
Sky Light stepped forward. “Whatever happened out there, we’re not going back the way we came. Not anytime soon. We need to get moving.”
“Moving?” Shady Patch asked incredulously. “Where? Into the creepy trees?”
“It’s as good as anywhere else. If we can’t find another way out, we can at least find food and shelter.”
“In those trees? I think we’d end up being the food. Besides, we know we need to go up. We should head higher up the slope and start digging at the cave wall. Presto can find his way to another mine shaft.”
“More than likely to be flooded as well,” said Sawdust. “We’ll have no luck digging out. We’ll have to wait until it all drains away, assuming there’s an end to the sky water at all. Or we find another exit far away, where the flood can’t reach. The smoke didn’t cover the whole world, so far as I could tell.”
“Besides,” coughed Song, “can’t dig very far without food and good drink. We’ll need that anyway.”
“It’s settled,” Sky Light declared. “We’ll press on into the forest as soon as Song can travel. I have a feeling we’ll find everything we need here.”
Shady Patch stepped close in front of her, leaning into her face. “What’s that supposed to mean, huh? You two seemed more excited than surprised to find a bunch of trees at the bottom of a mine. If you know what this place is, I want to hear it!”
Sawdust stepped forward as well. “If they knew what this place was, they also knew what would happen to us when they opened it up!”
“How dare you?” Sky Light hissed, stepping back. “We knew no more than you did! Lord Beam merely took an interest in the report of a strange cave you found, and sent us to explore it!”
“I’ll bet he did,” said Song, sitting up. “And now, even when you’ve wiped out an entire village just by peeking, you still intend to go searching for whatever it is you hope to find here. Shouldn’t be surprised at what our benevolent pegasus overlords consider important.”
“Enough!”
The entire group turned in surprise to Quiet Time, whose face held a very impatient expression.
“Are we going to go or not? I’m already getting thirsty.”
Quiet Time stood in awe and total reverence. The cavernous room of opaque glass resounded with the sound that had led him in a haze from the entrance to the strange ruin:
Ticking.
Before him, carved of crystal more brilliant than any star, was a clock.
It was three times his height, shaped to resemble a six-sided tree. Among the branches at the top of each side was a representation of a different goddess from the story; two for each tribe, a greater and lesser, with the greater unicorn the chief of them all. Each goddess had a hoof raised atop its own uniquely-colored gemstone.
The Greater Unicorn faced him now, above the Clock’s face. Instead of hands, icons of the sun and moon chased each other around the circle on opposite sides, at a snail’s pace.
Lower on the trunk of the tree, instead of a window revealing a pendulum, there were murals that told the clock’s story. Quiet Time had never been so excited in his life as when he had learned the true story.
There had been two mothers, and six daughters. The mothers had died when a great black forest overthrew the world, and time had stopped. The forest burned under an unmoving sun, and the chief daughter failed to fix the world.
So she constructed the clock, and gave herself to power it and the heavens along with it.
Quiet Time felt tears in his eyes. He felt a sudden urge to show his new friends.
As he turned away, he didn’t notice the gems begin to glow.
The world was full of gods and goddesses. No one died, and so no one lived. There were no sun and moon, but a single, unmoving light in the sky that made the whole world shine like burning copper.
That was how things had always been, and anything else was unthinkable. But for one Lady Goddess and her Five Daughters, it was not enough.
The Lady had had a dream; the First Dream. She woke from her dream and saw the sad, unending state of the world around her, and gathered her daughters to help her change it.
Together they built the First Clock. The other gods and goddesses were amazed, as for the first time, the passage of one moment to another could be measured. Thus, change was introduced to the world; the idea that something could be one way at one time and another at the next.
The Lady and her daughters didn’t stop there. Working together, they split the great light in the sky into two, a greater and a lesser, and set them to move across the sky in time with the Clock.
From that moment on, nothing was ever the same again. The Lady’s daughters led the people in planting trees around the clock, squeezing water from the sky to nourish them, and creating many wondrous things with their magic. For the first time, the people of the world were happy.
But the nature of change is in endings as well as beginnings, and one cannot know joy without knowing sorrow.
The Lady died, just as the world she named Equus was becoming more wonderful than ever before or since, and her daughters knew the time of gods and goddesses was over. They grieved for their mother, and counseled together on what they should do next.
Some felt guilt for introducing the change that caused their mother to go away.
Some were sure that their mother’s decision to introduce change was right.
One still hoped her mother would change back.
They all agreed that something must be done, before this most horrible change claimed any more of their friends. But what?
The hopeful daughter, the meekest of all, finally spoke up.
She said that life was like the two lights they had set in the sky. Before splitting the great light their mother had tried to move it on its own, but found it could not budge so long as it was alone. It had to be divided; two lights of opposite natures, forever in opposition, to chase each other endlessly and never meet, all the while measuring the passage of days.
Just as the greater light must go away for a while, she said, our mother has left us. But we know nothing stays the same forever, and so we know that one day she must come back.
Her sisters fell silent as they learned to feel hope for the first time.
They swiftly agreed, then, that change in the world must never be allowed to cease. The Clock must be protected, lest the measurement fail and the world become stagnant once more.
And so the Harmonious Clock was sealed away at the bottom of the world, until the day the Five Daughters meet their Mother once more.
“The Harmonious Clock? You found it?”
“So my children tell me, sir scholar,” the great Pegasus Lord Radiant Beam growled, scowling down at his two heirs seated beside him in the opulent parlor of his manor. The young stallion and mare didn’t appear troubled in the least; as far as Quiet Time had seen, scowling seemed to be their father’s neutral expression. “But that is why we have summoned you here from the North, to inquire in the mine and ascertain whether or not such an artifact is in my lands.”
Quiet Time bit his lip and looked back down at the old storybook on the low table in front of him. In the schools he taught in in the North, the story of the Clock was regarded as an insubstantial myth to explain the movements of the sun and moon. There were many different versions of it; some had six daughters instead of five and some only had two, and for some reason in the far West it was told with two mothers. This particular copy was admittedly ancient and rich with detail and symbolism, but it didn’t make this claim any more credible. No true scholar of the North seriously believed the Clock actually existed.
Still, Quiet thought, looking back at the grandfather clock on his hip, his Character Mark; there is something special about that story.
“My daughter was very persistent about calling in a scholar. In fact, she recommended you specifically. She spoke at length of your authority on the subject,” the lord went on.
Quiet looked quickly up at his new patron, then stole a glance at his daughter. Sky Light was smirking at him mischievously.
“I was very impressed by your knowledge and abilities when we were students together. Perhaps you remember me?”
Lord Beam raised an eyebrow over his daughter at her odd tone, and Quiet Time silently prayed to the goddesses that he wouldn’t blush. Sky Light’s younger brother, Ancillary, shook his head and shifted subtly to face away from his sister.
Sky Light sat straighter on her couch. “Of course, I’ll be going with you to verify this for myself.”
Lord Beam’s head whipped back around to face his daughter again. Quiet suspected that he and his host were equally startled by Sky Light’s declaration. Radiant Beam voiced no objection, however, and Sky Light met his ever-present scowl with a sweet smile.
With a cough to clear his throat, Lord Beam turned back to Quiet Time. “Well, scholar? What say you?”
Quiet took a moment to gather his thoughts, looking at the nobleman and his family sitting before him; Lord Beam in his glimmering golden breastplate, sitting more than a full head taller than his children; Ancillary, full-grown yet still smaller and more frail than his sister, with a Character Mark of a constellation on his dark coat and inquisitive eyes that made Quiet suspect this book about the Clock came from the boy’s own collection; and Sky Light, gold and white and draped in blue finery, lounging on her couch and fixing him with a lidded gaze.
It’s not hard to tell why she wanted me to come, Quiet thought to himself. But what of this find? An underground forest at the bottom of a mine, and word of strange happenings in the skies above? Ancillary at least seems to think that points to the resting place of the Clock.
And that, at least, is worth taking a look.
“I’ll do it,” he said with a small smile and bright eyes.
“It ain’t natural. They were right to seal it up.”
Quiet Time felt like pounding his head on the counter, or pounding down another drink. One of those proved more appealing than the other, and he motioned to the unicorn behind the bar who was the source of his early headache. She paused on her way to the other end of the counter, smirked, and passed him an entire pitcher in a dark red glow.
“Natural or not, it’s been ordered unsealed.” Sky Light was sitting next to him at the bar, and was almost as frustrated. “These decisions are your lord’s to make, not yours.”
“All I’m saying is it was the right one. Y’all didn’t see the smoke in the sky like we did. Came right out of nowhere, at just the same time they broke through that wall and found those trees. It got to where it was casting shadows on the ground, and folks swear they heard growling coming from the thick of it before they got wise and sealed the hole back up. You watch; you open up that cave again and the smoke’ll be back, thicker than ever. We’ll all be choked out or eaten up or goddesses-know-what before you so much as hear ticking from any dratted clock. Not that anyone has the right to meddle with such things anyway, on principle.”
“Bah, you don’t really care about that, Song,” came a voice from behind, triggering a chorus of chuckles from the sparse, dirty crowd in the tavern. Quiet looked over his shoulder to see a dark pegasus mare darkened further by soot, with her legs on a table, grinning at the barmaid. “The sun being drowned out by sky monsters is just more fun to complain about than taxes. Or am I not supposed to say that in front of nobility? Oops.” She turned her grin to Sky Light, who only lifted her lip a smidge and looked down her nose at the mare. “Heck, I’ll take you down to the breach if you’re really wanting to go. Open it up for you, too. Name’s Shady Patch. My brother and I’ll make sure you come outta there as clean and perfect as when you went in. Hey, Presto! Come— The heck d’you think you’re doing?”
Quiet followed Shady Patch’s livid glare to another corner of the room, where a young unicorn just a shade lighter than his sister was looking up in surprise from some odd wooden baubles on a table, across from a hunched, suddenly very grumpy-looking brown Earth Pony stallion.
Shady Patch swung her legs off the table and stood up. “You oughta know better than to play anything against old Sawdust! And you!” The stallion turned away and frowned deeper. “You oughta know better than to try anything like that with kin o’mine! You put those dirty dice away and pray you don’t have anything on you that’d more rightly be in my brother’s bag instead of yours!”
“I told you to wait and try him when she’s not in the same room, Sawdust,” the barmaid said with a helpless smirk.
“Shut up, Song,” said Shady Patch, walking briskly to her terrified brother. “You’re encouraging both of them. Maybe we oughtn’t to come here anymore. Waste enough of our money the honest way without losing it at dice. Come on, kid. We’re leaving.”
Quiet exchanged a glance with Sky Light next to him. “Are you still going to take us through the mine?” she asked, leaning back to see past Quiet.
“Yeah, yeah. Just give us an hour to gather up what we need, and we’ll meet you back here. And I expect to be well paid!”
“Let ‘er rip, kid!”
Quiet Time squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears tighter as Shady Patch’s silent brother, Star Presto, was knocked back on his rear by the purple blast that came from his horn. A rush of dust swept up through the rocky tunnel toward them, and Quiet felt a surge of adrenaline as a shower of loose pebbles rained down on his head for a moment.
Quiet heard coughing from multiple throats, and then the angry voice of Sky Light through the haze. “If you—”
Sky Light was suddenly cut off as a blast of warm air came from the same direction as the dust, flushing it all away and leaving the tunnel clear once more. Quiet listened as the air wave howled through the rest of the mine behind them.
“What was that?” Sky Light asked, all urgency gone from her voice.
“Couldn’t say for certain,” Shady Patch answered, righting the lantern that had been knocked over. “You usually get a little gust when you break into a cave, but never anything like that. I think I remember one of the other guys saying something like this happened the first time they opened this up. Kinda strange that it happened again after only a week or two being sealed, for how big this cave’s supposed to be. We all still here? No one got blown away or eaten by escaping sky monsters? How about you, quiet guy?”
“Here,” Quiet answered.
“Woah.”
Quiet Time, Sky Light, and Shady Patch all turned to see Star Presto framed in the dark hole he had made at the end of the tunnel. Quiet stepped up to join him.
“Woah.”
To Quiet Time’s eyes, he had stepped out of the mine and into an open valley at nighttime. He knew he hadn’t, though, because it had only been late afternoon when they entered an hour ago, and there was no way the sun had gone down already at this time of year.
Above him was a field of stars, though there were no constellations he recognized. The backdrop they were set in seemed darker than a natural night sky. He couldn’t see a moon anywhere.
What little light there was seemed to come from a layer of odd smoke that floated at about his eye level, and stretched off into the distance. The smoke appeared to give off its own gentle light, which allowed Quiet Time to see what sat below the smoke.
As his eyes adjusted and he squinted to see more clearly, Quiet gasped.
The valley floor was a tangled mess of… things. He supposed they must have been trees, but they were like no trees he had ever heard of. These ones grew almost on top of each other, at every angle imaginable. They twisted and curved and turned in odd directions. The canopies were draped across the branches in a wet sort of way, and he couldn’t tell what sort belonged to which tree. Some seemed to have hanging strings and ropes instead of proper leaves.
The trees all grew so close together that Quiet had no idea what was underneath their canopies. The air in the valley was absolutely still and quite warm, but he thought he saw faint movement in the distant darkness.
Quiet was startled from his reverence by the whisper of Sky Light next to him. “Incredible. Do you think it could really be the Sealed Forest?”
“Who can say?” he whispered back.
A noise from the tunnel behind him caught Quiet’s ear, and he looked back. He thought he could feel a cool breeze coming from the mine that he hadn’t felt before. He stepped away from his patron and his guides, and strained to make out the faint sounds.
Quiet thought he could hear a noise like a pony exhaling heavily, and as he listened closer, he also heard echoes of what sounded like shouting.
“Miss Patch?”
Shady snorted. “Wasn’t quite expecting to be called ‘Miss’ at a time like this. You’re spoiling the moment, quiet guy. What’s up?”
“Listen!”
Shady Patch cocked an eyebrow, then an ear towards the tunnel. Both sounds had gotten more noticeable. The first now sounded like an entire crowd blowing to cool their soup, and the second was definitely loud voices. They sounded frightened.
“Miss Patch?”
Shady Patch shushed him, narrowing her eyes in concentration. “Wait here!” she said to the group after a moment, then she flapped her wings and flew back into the tunnel and left the three of them alone on the empty slope, under the strange stars.
Quiet Time exchanged nervous glances with Sky Light and even Star Presto as the noise continued to increase in volume, faster and faster. The breathing had become a high roar, and the voices had become less frequent.
Finally, they heard the voice of Shady Patch from a distance. “There it is! Presto! Get them away from the tunnel, fast!”
They didn’t need telling twice, and the three of them took off running down the slope.
From the tunnel came a great wordless shout of multiple voices at once, and the ground began to rumble.
As the shaking and noise reached its peak, the mouth of the tunnel erupted in a gout of brown water. It began to cascade down the hill, and the three stunned explorers below quickly realized they had evacuated in the wrong direction.
Quiet Time turned and ran downhill for all he was worth, the terror of tripping up in the low light at the forefront of his mind.
Beside him, Sky Light took to the air and came above him, grabbing him around his middle and picking him up off the ground.
“Wait!” Quiet protested. “Presto!”
Out of the black sky swooped Shady Patch, scooping up her poor brother just as the pounding flood crashed into the rocky slope he had just occupied.
“Star! Block it!” Shady Patch shouted, turning back up the hill.
Star Presto’s horn lit up as his sister carried him over the entrance to the mine, and a large portion of the hill above it collapsed, closing the tunnel once again. Small jets of brown water still shot out from between the rocks, but they slowly relaxed in pressure and became clearer in color until they became mere trickles, combining into a stream following in the wake of the flood.
The majority of the water reached the treeline below, and a wave of motion spread through the treetops, accompanied by many rather ominous noises.
Sky Light set Quiet down on a jutting rock, and went off to another part of the hillside. Quiet watched her go, and realized what she was doing.
Two other figures were lying farther down the hill. One was deep red, and was lying flat and still. The other was brown, and was hunched over the red one and moving anxiously. Sky Light alighted next to them, and knelt down as well. They were joined by Shady Patch and Star Presto, and Quiet Time realized he was all alone on his rock. He jumped down and carefully made his way through the mud to the others.
When he got to them, he found progress had been made with the motionless red figure, who he realized was Song, the barmaid from the tavern. Sky Light and Shady Patch were already questioning Sawdust, the other figure who had been trying to revive Song.
“It’s gone, Patch. It’s all gone by now.”
“Are you sure?” Shady Patch demanded. “You didn’t see it!”
“You saw what came after us. It was even worse up above. Only a minute after the smoke came back, and water started falling from the sky. It was as if there was a whole lake up on top of the mountain, and something broke and sent the whole thing through town. Everything’s been washed off the cliffs by now. Some of us made it into the mines, and pegasi flew off with whoever they could carry.”
Song coughed, still lying flat on her back. “Told you. Told you all.”
Sky Light stepped forward. “Whatever happened out there, we’re not going back the way we came. Not anytime soon. We need to get moving.”
“Moving?” Shady Patch asked incredulously. “Where? Into the creepy trees?”
“It’s as good as anywhere else. If we can’t find another way out, we can at least find food and shelter.”
“In those trees? I think we’d end up being the food. Besides, we know we need to go up. We should head higher up the slope and start digging at the cave wall. Presto can find his way to another mine shaft.”
“More than likely to be flooded as well,” said Sawdust. “We’ll have no luck digging out. We’ll have to wait until it all drains away, assuming there’s an end to the sky water at all. Or we find another exit far away, where the flood can’t reach. The smoke didn’t cover the whole world, so far as I could tell.”
“Besides,” coughed Song, “can’t dig very far without food and good drink. We’ll need that anyway.”
“It’s settled,” Sky Light declared. “We’ll press on into the forest as soon as Song can travel. I have a feeling we’ll find everything we need here.”
Shady Patch stepped close in front of her, leaning into her face. “What’s that supposed to mean, huh? You two seemed more excited than surprised to find a bunch of trees at the bottom of a mine. If you know what this place is, I want to hear it!”
Sawdust stepped forward as well. “If they knew what this place was, they also knew what would happen to us when they opened it up!”
“How dare you?” Sky Light hissed, stepping back. “We knew no more than you did! Lord Beam merely took an interest in the report of a strange cave you found, and sent us to explore it!”
“I’ll bet he did,” said Song, sitting up. “And now, even when you’ve wiped out an entire village just by peeking, you still intend to go searching for whatever it is you hope to find here. Shouldn’t be surprised at what our benevolent pegasus overlords consider important.”
“Enough!”
The entire group turned in surprise to Quiet Time, whose face held a very impatient expression.
“Are we going to go or not? I’m already getting thirsty.”
Quiet Time stood in awe and total reverence. The cavernous room of opaque glass resounded with the sound that had led him in a haze from the entrance to the strange ruin:
Ticking.
Before him, carved of crystal more brilliant than any star, was a clock.
It was three times his height, shaped to resemble a six-sided tree. Among the branches at the top of each side was a representation of a different goddess from the story; two for each tribe, a greater and lesser, with the greater unicorn the chief of them all. Each goddess had a hoof raised atop its own uniquely-colored gemstone.
The Greater Unicorn faced him now, above the Clock’s face. Instead of hands, icons of the sun and moon chased each other around the circle on opposite sides, at a snail’s pace.
Lower on the trunk of the tree, instead of a window revealing a pendulum, there were murals that told the clock’s story. Quiet Time had never been so excited in his life as when he had learned the true story.
There had been two mothers, and six daughters. The mothers had died when a great black forest overthrew the world, and time had stopped. The forest burned under an unmoving sun, and the chief daughter failed to fix the world.
So she constructed the clock, and gave herself to power it and the heavens along with it.
Quiet Time felt tears in his eyes. He felt a sudden urge to show his new friends.
As he turned away, he didn’t notice the gems begin to glow.
Ooh, nice myth.
I’m sure Ancillary will play a critical role in the story.
Oh. This was a very cool alternate universe, though not everything is clear. I had a tough time figuring out the choreography of the run from the flood, why everything went nuts upon unsealing the cavern escapes me, and I feel like there's something about the nature of the Sealed Forest that I'm not getting. Still, with some clarification and expansion, this should prove even more fascinating.
I’m sure Ancillary will play a critical role in the story.
Oh. This was a very cool alternate universe, though not everything is clear. I had a tough time figuring out the choreography of the run from the flood, why everything went nuts upon unsealing the cavern escapes me, and I feel like there's something about the nature of the Sealed Forest that I'm not getting. Still, with some clarification and expansion, this should prove even more fascinating.
Disclaimer: I am a person. Therefore, I have biases. I try to look at things objectively, but that does not mean I always succeed. Furthermore, I'm not an authority. If any of my critique does not make sense on its own, poke me to convey my reasoning, and upon hearing it, decide for yourself if it has validity or not. Also, all exaggerations and comparisons made are not to ridicule, but to better convey the essence of my critique. Last but not least, my reviews contain unmarked spoilers, although I may use the [.spoiler] command occasionally.
The scenes are nicely crafted and I can't find glaring issues, although the escape from the flood got a bid hard to picture, as >>FanOfMostEverything already noted.
1. What I had most problems with is your scene transitions. The transition between the legend and the scene in the throne room was fine, but the cut between throne room and tavern was so harsh in setting and emotional shift that I had a hard time getting into it. Might also have to do with Quite ending the one scene seemingly stoked to uncover this mystery, and starting with complaining about something being "not natural" in the next without any explanation as to where that change of heart came from.
The harsh cuts continue with the other scene transitions, though. One second they've decided to go gather up equipment, meet back at the tavern, go through the mine and open up the seal. Next second, they're in front of the seal, about to blast it to pieces. This not only breaks the rather fine pacing you set in the scenes themselves, but plunges the reader into a situation where things are happening he/she has no context to yet. While that is a valid way to start a story off to plunge a reader right into the action, I think it should be used sparingly throughout a story to not confuse the reader. An introductory paragraph that's not action filled would alleviate most of that. Something like:
A paragraph like this for the scene transitions in your story would benefit your story a lot I think. Also, this helps in getting rid of stuff like this:
This way of introducing information is particularly clumsy.
2. Another thing I found was a missing dialogue attribution.
Here, I had no idea who spoke the first paragraph because you did neither introduce the barmaid nor even mention she was part of that unfolding conversation. I also still have no idea who Song is at that point until a few paragraphs later, which is really confusing taking into account you did not only introduce 2, but 4 characters in this scene.
3. I think you're leaving too much untold here. The story is obviously incomplete, but more of a hint what the glowing of the gems on the clock could mean, or what's up with the creepy forest, would make the (I hope) temporary ending you present here a bit more satisfactory.
Concluding remarks:
Great ideas, and an interesting yet underexplored cast of characters, and good writing, but harsh scene transitions and incomplete as a story.
The scenes are nicely crafted and I can't find glaring issues, although the escape from the flood got a bid hard to picture, as >>FanOfMostEverything already noted.
1. What I had most problems with is your scene transitions. The transition between the legend and the scene in the throne room was fine, but the cut between throne room and tavern was so harsh in setting and emotional shift that I had a hard time getting into it. Might also have to do with Quite ending the one scene seemingly stoked to uncover this mystery, and starting with complaining about something being "not natural" in the next without any explanation as to where that change of heart came from.
The harsh cuts continue with the other scene transitions, though. One second they've decided to go gather up equipment, meet back at the tavern, go through the mine and open up the seal. Next second, they're in front of the seal, about to blast it to pieces. This not only breaks the rather fine pacing you set in the scenes themselves, but plunges the reader into a situation where things are happening he/she has no context to yet. While that is a valid way to start a story off to plunge a reader right into the action, I think it should be used sparingly throughout a story to not confuse the reader. An introductory paragraph that's not action filled would alleviate most of that. Something like:
Once Shady Patch and Star Presto had gathered their equipment, the party set out towards the mines. Quite only reluctantly left the warm afternoon sun behind as they entered, the warm, flowery breeze replaced by cool, still air that smelled of earth and moss. Down they went, moving ever further into the bowels of the mountain. After about an hour, they reached their destination: a wall, the haste with which it was built apparent by the different size stones, just patched up with dirt from the ground.
Shady Patch pointed at it: “Let ‘er rip, kid!
A paragraph like this for the scene transitions in your story would benefit your story a lot I think. Also, this helps in getting rid of stuff like this:
To Quiet Time’s eyes, he had stepped out of the mine and into an open valley at nighttime. He knew he hadn’t, though, because it had only been late afternoon when they entered an hour ago, and there was no way the sun had gone down already at this time of year.
This way of introducing information is particularly clumsy.
2. Another thing I found was a missing dialogue attribution.
“All I’m saying is it was the right one. Y’all didn’t see the smoke in the sky like we did. Came right out of nowhere, at just the same time they broke through that wall and found those trees. It got to where it was casting shadows on the ground, and folks swear they heard growling coming from the thick of it before they got wise and sealed the hole back up. You watch; you open up that cave again and the smoke’ll be back, thicker than ever. We’ll all be choked out or eaten up or goddesses-know-what before you so much as hear ticking from any dratted clock. Not that anyone has the right to meddle with such things anyway, on principle.”
“Bah, you don’t really care about that, Song,” came a voice from behind,
Here, I had no idea who spoke the first paragraph because you did neither introduce the barmaid nor even mention she was part of that unfolding conversation. I also still have no idea who Song is at that point until a few paragraphs later, which is really confusing taking into account you did not only introduce 2, but 4 characters in this scene.
3. I think you're leaving too much untold here. The story is obviously incomplete, but more of a hint what the glowing of the gems on the clock could mean, or what's up with the creepy forest, would make the (I hope) temporary ending you present here a bit more satisfactory.
Concluding remarks:
Great ideas, and an interesting yet underexplored cast of characters, and good writing, but harsh scene transitions and incomplete as a story.
This is an interesting story, but I felt it was a bit too jarring at times. And I didn't really get as strong a feel for the characters as I felt I needed to.
It also felt far shorter than expected. Usually McGuffin quests have more than just the one hazard to overcome before reaching the objective (more hazards == more character development and more tension!).
And the ending felt, well, not complete. What was the significance of the glow? What are the consequences of finding the clock? These seem like questions that really should be answered and yet we're not really given an inkling.
My guess is the time limit didn't do you any favours. Maybe you didn't have enough time to write the full story for one reason or another. But I think that, given no hard time limit, you could polish thisinto something pretty great. As is, though...
Verdict: Needs more time and care.
It also felt far shorter than expected. Usually McGuffin quests have more than just the one hazard to overcome before reaching the objective (more hazards == more character development and more tension!).
And the ending felt, well, not complete. What was the significance of the glow? What are the consequences of finding the clock? These seem like questions that really should be answered and yet we're not really given an inkling.
My guess is the time limit didn't do you any favours. Maybe you didn't have enough time to write the full story for one reason or another. But I think that, given no hard time limit, you could polish thisinto something pretty great. As is, though...
Verdict: Needs more time and care.
This story has some interesting worldbuilding going for it, and the characters have potential. I like the tone, I like the prose, and I like the flow. However, there were significant problems I had with this story.
First problem is the multitude of characters. There are many characters. Scene 2 introduces and describes four characters. Scene 3 introduces and describes four more characters. It’s just too much at once for me to get a feel for these characters, given the relatively short length of the story. The characters became nothing but names after a while, and I had a hard time distinguishing who was who, and this was especially confusing in discussions involving six characters. A solution to this is either cutting the cast to only the characters that are necessary (and/or combining roles if it makes sense--perhaps Shady Patch and Presto, for instance?) (for an example of characters to cut--perhaps Radiant Beam's son?), or introducing characters more slowly, taking time to let the reader get to know them. The more the character appears in the story, the more time we should spend getting to know them, as a general rule of thumb (for instance, I think describing Radiant Beam's son was unnecessary as he's barely present, especially considering three other characters were also being introduced in that scene).
Second problem is the protagonist. He doesn’t seem to be very active at all. All he’s done in this story is accepted a quest. The rest seems to be him just tagging along. He doesn’t seem to be the one pushing forward, everyone else is. And really, all his motivation seems to be is that he’s interested in the clock, partly because his character mark is a clock. I’d recommend either making another character the protagonist / POV character, or making Quiet more active and have a stronger motivation to push forward in his quest. I feel like Quiet Time was intentionally written as a quiet character, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be an active character or have strong opinions on things happening around him, especially since he’s the POV character and we (the reader) can get his opinions from the narration and not just action & dialogue.
Third problem is the transition into the last scene. I was fine with the other scene transitions, though they were slightly jarring and the scenes in between a tad too brief. However, leading into the last scene, the argument between the characters about where to go feels sudden and very fast, and then the last scene happens where all the other characters have mysteriously disappeared except for Quiet, who has conveniently reached the story goal of finding the clock. Everything up until the last scene felt like the beginning of a longer story. The last scene felt like a climax. This threw the pacing way off and was very jarring for me. Then it ends with a cliffhanger, which means the climax is sort of a mini-climax, a moment just before something supposedly goes very wrong, but the story’s over already. This leaves the entry feeling like pieces of a story rather than a complete story.
The last thing I'll point out here is a smaller (but important) issue: dialogue attribution. >>wYvern already pointed it out. The more characters you have in a scene, the more important it is to make it clear which character is speaking. Really, it's more important for any character count greater than 2. There are more examples than Wyvern pointed out [“The Harmonious Clock? You found it?”] [“It ain’t natural. They were right to seal it up.”]. And with those examples specifically, a single line of dialogue can be an interesting way to open up the scene, but you need to make it clear who's speaking right away. Otherwise, it hurts my immersion to read a line of dialogue, wait a sentence or two to figure out who was speaking it, and then read it again knowing that "oh, okay, that's the character who was talking."
The core idea here could be strong, but I think it needs quite a bit more work from here to be great.
First problem is the multitude of characters. There are many characters. Scene 2 introduces and describes four characters. Scene 3 introduces and describes four more characters. It’s just too much at once for me to get a feel for these characters, given the relatively short length of the story. The characters became nothing but names after a while, and I had a hard time distinguishing who was who, and this was especially confusing in discussions involving six characters. A solution to this is either cutting the cast to only the characters that are necessary (and/or combining roles if it makes sense--perhaps Shady Patch and Presto, for instance?) (for an example of characters to cut--perhaps Radiant Beam's son?), or introducing characters more slowly, taking time to let the reader get to know them. The more the character appears in the story, the more time we should spend getting to know them, as a general rule of thumb (for instance, I think describing Radiant Beam's son was unnecessary as he's barely present, especially considering three other characters were also being introduced in that scene).
Second problem is the protagonist. He doesn’t seem to be very active at all. All he’s done in this story is accepted a quest. The rest seems to be him just tagging along. He doesn’t seem to be the one pushing forward, everyone else is. And really, all his motivation seems to be is that he’s interested in the clock, partly because his character mark is a clock. I’d recommend either making another character the protagonist / POV character, or making Quiet more active and have a stronger motivation to push forward in his quest. I feel like Quiet Time was intentionally written as a quiet character, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be an active character or have strong opinions on things happening around him, especially since he’s the POV character and we (the reader) can get his opinions from the narration and not just action & dialogue.
Third problem is the transition into the last scene. I was fine with the other scene transitions, though they were slightly jarring and the scenes in between a tad too brief. However, leading into the last scene, the argument between the characters about where to go feels sudden and very fast, and then the last scene happens where all the other characters have mysteriously disappeared except for Quiet, who has conveniently reached the story goal of finding the clock. Everything up until the last scene felt like the beginning of a longer story. The last scene felt like a climax. This threw the pacing way off and was very jarring for me. Then it ends with a cliffhanger, which means the climax is sort of a mini-climax, a moment just before something supposedly goes very wrong, but the story’s over already. This leaves the entry feeling like pieces of a story rather than a complete story.
The last thing I'll point out here is a smaller (but important) issue: dialogue attribution. >>wYvern already pointed it out. The more characters you have in a scene, the more important it is to make it clear which character is speaking. Really, it's more important for any character count greater than 2. There are more examples than Wyvern pointed out [“The Harmonious Clock? You found it?”] [“It ain’t natural. They were right to seal it up.”]. And with those examples specifically, a single line of dialogue can be an interesting way to open up the scene, but you need to make it clear who's speaking right away. Otherwise, it hurts my immersion to read a line of dialogue, wait a sentence or two to figure out who was speaking it, and then read it again knowing that "oh, okay, that's the character who was talking."
The core idea here could be strong, but I think it needs quite a bit more work from here to be great.
This story is a perfect example of trying to cram too much story into too little space. You really should have used the 4000 words you had to spare, though I imagine you probably ran out of time.
The worst part for me was the characters. There are too many of them, and none of them had the chance to define themselves. By the end of the story, I had given up on keeping track of who each character was, because it really didn't matter. You need to either cut this down to just two or three main characters, or just give it a rather large expansion. Preferably the latter, because this really feels more like the beginning of a story than a complete story.
I do think that the mythology at the beginning was pretty good, though it would be nice if it factored into the rest of the story more.
The worst part for me was the characters. There are too many of them, and none of them had the chance to define themselves. By the end of the story, I had given up on keeping track of who each character was, because it really didn't matter. You need to either cut this down to just two or three main characters, or just give it a rather large expansion. Preferably the latter, because this really feels more like the beginning of a story than a complete story.
I do think that the mythology at the beginning was pretty good, though it would be nice if it factored into the rest of the story more.
Entry number 16, File Code Name, Harmony is Clockwork.
This story starts a little differently then normal but I do enjoy reading the ending bit. It takes place in the mythos of Equus's past and delves into some mysteries surrounding the elements of Harmony. Despite some of the dialogue I did enjoy reading about how this all came to be. Maybe having more tone and detail surrounding the mythos of these characters will add rich story elements to it.
This story starts a little differently then normal but I do enjoy reading the ending bit. It takes place in the mythos of Equus's past and delves into some mysteries surrounding the elements of Harmony. Despite some of the dialogue I did enjoy reading about how this all came to be. Maybe having more tone and detail surrounding the mythos of these characters will add rich story elements to it.
I'm afraid my schedule this week hasn't been kind. I'll try to limp through my slate before time runs out, but I'll have to abbreviate my feedback.
Here, author, add me to the chorus of readers finding this compressed; I'm echoing >>The_Letter_J mostly. I think not only does this want further material past its current stopping point (which isn't an ending so much as a chapter break), but could stand more expansion in the material as written.
A specific thought on that: Whether consciously or unconsciously, you're using the same story structure here as My Little Pony's first episode -- opening up with a mythological retelling, zooming out to a pony tasked by royalty withgetting out of the castle investigating a harmony problem, and falling in with five friends who, presumably, will end up being the key to the problem's resolution. Clearly, this is a structure with a lot of promise: after all, we're all here talking about ponies. What that also means is that we can look at MLP and figure out what made that so successful, and try to steal its fire.
And there's one major element in the MLP opener that I don't see here: everyone in the main cast gets multiple moments to shine. One by one, we're introduced to the Mane Six in a way that highlights their personality, shows their strengths, and plays them off against Twilight. And then in the second episode, when they journey through the Everfree, that's done again: each of the ponies surmounts an obstacle that shows them as an exemplar of their element. (Except Applejack, who just drops Twilight off of a cliff.) We're introduced to a large cast in a short time, but everyone feels distinctive and gives us a reason to root for them.
I think the worst offender here is Ancillary, who lives up to his name: he's introduced in a support role and then never seen again. (And I am so goddamned curious about his special talent. What sort of heartless parent names their kid that?) But pretty much everyone seems just along for the ride, except for Sky Light and Shady Patch, who take most of the initiative we see. Sawdust, for example, I thought was just a bit part until he showed up again in the cave: why did they bring the old dude that they were playing poker against? And the cave is opened by a pony, Presto, whose full name we don't even know before he becomes central to their big entrance; why didn't the original mission have someone on board who knew where it was and how to get in?
In other words, slow down here and get us as invested in your characters as your mythology. The worldbuilding is certainly a relative highlight, and I think the action scenes would hold their weight if we were invested in the characters, so this certainly has some potential if expanded out.
Tier: Needs Work
Here, author, add me to the chorus of readers finding this compressed; I'm echoing >>The_Letter_J mostly. I think not only does this want further material past its current stopping point (which isn't an ending so much as a chapter break), but could stand more expansion in the material as written.
A specific thought on that: Whether consciously or unconsciously, you're using the same story structure here as My Little Pony's first episode -- opening up with a mythological retelling, zooming out to a pony tasked by royalty with
And there's one major element in the MLP opener that I don't see here: everyone in the main cast gets multiple moments to shine. One by one, we're introduced to the Mane Six in a way that highlights their personality, shows their strengths, and plays them off against Twilight. And then in the second episode, when they journey through the Everfree, that's done again: each of the ponies surmounts an obstacle that shows them as an exemplar of their element. (Except Applejack, who just drops Twilight off of a cliff.) We're introduced to a large cast in a short time, but everyone feels distinctive and gives us a reason to root for them.
I think the worst offender here is Ancillary, who lives up to his name: he's introduced in a support role and then never seen again. (And I am so goddamned curious about his special talent. What sort of heartless parent names their kid that?) But pretty much everyone seems just along for the ride, except for Sky Light and Shady Patch, who take most of the initiative we see. Sawdust, for example, I thought was just a bit part until he showed up again in the cave: why did they bring the old dude that they were playing poker against? And the cave is opened by a pony, Presto, whose full name we don't even know before he becomes central to their big entrance; why didn't the original mission have someone on board who knew where it was and how to get in?
In other words, slow down here and get us as invested in your characters as your mythology. The worldbuilding is certainly a relative highlight, and I think the action scenes would hold their weight if we were invested in the characters, so this certainly has some potential if expanded out.
Tier: Needs Work
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
I just read this but to me the forest is clear - that's the Everfree. The 'True' story at the end is Princess Twilight Sparkle - except in this one, Twilight failed to find Celestia/Luna, so used the Elements of Harmony and their lifeforce to somehow empower this clock to resume moving the heavens. The Everfree is the Sealed Forest, probably to stop its wild growth of plunder vines? Idk. Author can elaborate, this is all conjecture on my part.
The gems are glowing because hey, the Elements were just re-discovered and are re-awakening or something.
And, well, depending on if you believe whether or not Alicorns need to eat, Celestia and Luna may be super duper bored still sitting in their vine-prison-things.
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
I just read this but to me the forest is clear - that's the Everfree. The 'True' story at the end is Princess Twilight Sparkle - except in this one, Twilight failed to find Celestia/Luna, so used the Elements of Harmony and their lifeforce to somehow empower this clock to resume moving the heavens. The Everfree is the Sealed Forest, probably to stop its wild growth of plunder vines? Idk. Author can elaborate, this is all conjecture on my part.
The gems are glowing because hey, the Elements were just re-discovered and are re-awakening or something.
And, well, depending on if you believe whether or not Alicorns need to eat, Celestia and Luna may be super duper bored still sitting in their vine-prison-things.
>>Morning Sun
I figured that much. It's just that the description of the bizarre, ropey trees made it feel like there was more going on beyond standard Everfree behavior, even when taking the plundervines and related organisms into account. I may have just been overthinking it, though.
I figured that much. It's just that the description of the bizarre, ropey trees made it feel like there was more going on beyond standard Everfree behavior, even when taking the plundervines and related organisms into account. I may have just been overthinking it, though.
>>FanOfMostEverything
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>FrontSevens
>>The_Letter_J
>>Broman
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun
And one full week later, I finally look at this again. I never even finished my slate, but now it turns out I was one spot away from the finals. The story definitely doesn't deserve it, not as it is.
I don't even know if reply notifications are a thing on this site, but I figured I'd post here anyway to talk about this a bit. Morning Sun has it pretty much spot-on, though to be honest I had some future, non-canon catastrophe in mind that took Celestia and Luna out of the picture. Funny how the plunder vines fit the bill perfectly.
Like everyone guessed, I ran out of time hard. The deadline for me was 6 AM, and I was up all night trying to write. I was too tired to focus the whole time, though, so I spent most of my time procrastinating. I made sure the opening was polished, but I looked up at the clock just as I was finishing the flood thing and noticed it was 5:50.
The original idea was to parallel the show pilot even more with character scenes in the forest, but I simply did not leave myself time for that. Instead I tried to imply that they had had those adventures and become friends along the way, but it was a pretty pathetic effort. I don't think any of you guys picked up that the gems were the Elements themselves, except maybe Morning Sun.
My transitions were pretty bad, mostly because I didn't make any revision passes before submitting. If I had a full week or two and the requisite motivation to write every day, this would have been a much larger and better story.
I mentioned in Discord that I've had this story half-plotted out for a year now, and was kinda just waiting for the right prompt. Well, the prompt came and I wasn't ready for it. I only had two or three of the characters fleshed out and none of them had names, but I'm much better at making up characters on the fly than in outlining, so I wasn't worried.
The bigger problem is that most of what I had planned already wasn't really going to show up in this first part anyway, because I intended this to be a larger story. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but it'll probably be a complete overhaul.
Incidentally, this idea started out as "What would MLP be like if it was made for boys instead of girls?" Like I said, none of the boyish stuff made it into this entry, but it's there in the world. Pester me if you want to read that story.
>>wYvern
>>Bugle
>>FrontSevens
>>The_Letter_J
>>Broman
>>horizon
>>Morning Sun
And one full week later, I finally look at this again. I never even finished my slate, but now it turns out I was one spot away from the finals. The story definitely doesn't deserve it, not as it is.
I don't even know if reply notifications are a thing on this site, but I figured I'd post here anyway to talk about this a bit. Morning Sun has it pretty much spot-on, though to be honest I had some future, non-canon catastrophe in mind that took Celestia and Luna out of the picture. Funny how the plunder vines fit the bill perfectly.
Like everyone guessed, I ran out of time hard. The deadline for me was 6 AM, and I was up all night trying to write. I was too tired to focus the whole time, though, so I spent most of my time procrastinating. I made sure the opening was polished, but I looked up at the clock just as I was finishing the flood thing and noticed it was 5:50.
The original idea was to parallel the show pilot even more with character scenes in the forest, but I simply did not leave myself time for that. Instead I tried to imply that they had had those adventures and become friends along the way, but it was a pretty pathetic effort. I don't think any of you guys picked up that the gems were the Elements themselves, except maybe Morning Sun.
My transitions were pretty bad, mostly because I didn't make any revision passes before submitting. If I had a full week or two and the requisite motivation to write every day, this would have been a much larger and better story.
I mentioned in Discord that I've had this story half-plotted out for a year now, and was kinda just waiting for the right prompt. Well, the prompt came and I wasn't ready for it. I only had two or three of the characters fleshed out and none of them had names, but I'm much better at making up characters on the fly than in outlining, so I wasn't worried.
The bigger problem is that most of what I had planned already wasn't really going to show up in this first part anyway, because I intended this to be a larger story. Maybe someday I'll try it again, but it'll probably be a complete overhaul.
Incidentally, this idea started out as "What would MLP be like if it was made for boys instead of girls?" Like I said, none of the boyish stuff made it into this entry, but it's there in the world. Pester me if you want to read that story.