Post by ladymoondancer on Feb 23, 2009 12:33:19 GMT -5
This is really a PonyIsland story, but PonyIsland ponies are so MLP-ish, it's about the same thing. Except for living on islands instead of in Dream Valley and having some additional breeds of ponies.
A lot of the ponies in this are fairy ponies, which are basically the same thing as Summerwings/Wingers in MLP terminology.
The title is from a Matthew Arnold poem. ^_^
Well, I think that's about all I wanted to say, except that this is one of my first forays into first-person storytelling and I find it very challenging.
On a Darkling Plain
My name's Blitzen and I think I've heard every reindeer joke ever told. No, my mom wasn't Vixen and my father's name wasn't Rudolph. As far as I know.
My mother . . . well, what I remember about my mother is that she was pink. And I don't really remember that either. It's a memory of a memory, if you know what I mean. The kind of thing you know so you keep turning it over in your mind and telling yourself and telling yourself until the story erases the original. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. Sterling says I should think about what I'm trying to say before I write. But I don't know what I want to say and that part doesn't matter anyway, so let's move on.
The first real memory I have is the net. It was scratchy and fibrous and my legs got caught in the spaces between the rope strands when I struggled and kicked. I was old enough to fly, because I was flying when they caught me. Don't remember if it was by the cliffs or on the meadow, but I remember seeing Id's cruel smile through the ropes as I tried to bite through them and got splinters in my tongue. That's another real memory.
I didn't know he was Id then. I didn't even know what he was; I'd never seen anything except fairies. He was like a monster from a fairy tale with his feathers bristling from his neck, huge bird wings beating at either side of the net, a curved beak, and bigger than any two fairy stallions put together. The biggest monster I'd ever seen, dragging me out of the air to the ship.
Just like I'd never seen a phoenix, I'd never seen a ship. The bag swayed and twisted as the bird-pony banked down and the ocean swung in and out of my sight. With each swing I caught a closer glimpse of something brown and wooden sitting on the waves. A wooden island, that's what I thought. Well, what else is a boat?
The bird-pony didn't land, just let go of the bag as he swooped over the deck. There was a moment of panic and freefall, then silence as the deck slapped me hard. I'd landed flat on my back and the blue sky above me rocked back and forth. Every few minutes the winged thing that caught me would fly over and drop another net with another struggling foal in it. Most of them were thrashing around but I just laid there on my back, first too dazed to move, then too scared.
A shadow fell over me and I was staring up a pair of fetlocked front legs as thick as tree trunks to a head with a sharp horn in the center and a green mane dipped in red at the tips, like blood. But the mane and the horn hardly registered just then; his size is what made him a monster. He was too big, there was too much of him. I don't mean that he was fat. But his legs were too wide, his head was too long, his chest was too deep, his body was too . . . too something. Sterling is at my ear suggesting words like "coarse" and "grossly substantial," but this is my story and, anyway, I'm not sure what the second one means. So let's move on.
After I got over my first shock I realized that the big horn-pony wasn't looking at me at all, he was looking up in the sky at the bird-pony. This led to a new fear, that he'd step on me. Since his hooves were bigger than I was it was a fear I took seriously. So I gathered all my courage and shouted, "Hey!" At least in my head it was a shout. It came out in more of a quaver. But it made the horn-pony look down, which is what I wanted. Sort of.
His big, too-much face split into a grin that would have been ugly even if his teeth hadn't been yellow, which they were. He said something that I didn't understand, then yelled something else I didn't understand at the bird-pony, who landed on the deck. Not only were they monster-ponies, but they couldn't even speak right.
But they understood each other okay, because after exchanging a few words the bird-pony started dragging netted fairies over to a cage that was built into the deck. That is, the top of the cage was level with the deck and the rest was kind of underneath. More monster ponies were swarming around, opening the top of the cage and helping the blue bird-pony drop them in. A lot of them flapped and tried to get away, but they didn't have a chance. I flapped and struggled too, when my turn came. You have to try.
Baby fairy ponies don't take up a lot of room and the cage was big so it wasn't that crowded. But we still huddled together. Everyone was whispering and crying--softly, because whenever it got too loud something would bash a giant hoof on the top of the cage, and that terrified us. Some I knew, like Sonnig, and others were strangers from rival herds, but none of that mattered now. We were trapped together in that smelly place, feeling sick as the floor rolled back and forth, stepping high and trying to hover to avoid the dirty water covering the floor.
A lot of the foals could no longer fly right. They'd beaten their thin wings to shreds inside the tough rope nets. Sonnig was crying as he flapped his wings; one was crumpled. I whispered to him. I don't remember what I said. It wouldn't have mattered what I'd said. He kept crying. Anyone would have.
[to be continued]
A lot of the ponies in this are fairy ponies, which are basically the same thing as Summerwings/Wingers in MLP terminology.
The title is from a Matthew Arnold poem. ^_^
Well, I think that's about all I wanted to say, except that this is one of my first forays into first-person storytelling and I find it very challenging.
On a Darkling Plain
My name's Blitzen and I think I've heard every reindeer joke ever told. No, my mom wasn't Vixen and my father's name wasn't Rudolph. As far as I know.
My mother . . . well, what I remember about my mother is that she was pink. And I don't really remember that either. It's a memory of a memory, if you know what I mean. The kind of thing you know so you keep turning it over in your mind and telling yourself and telling yourself until the story erases the original. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense. Sterling says I should think about what I'm trying to say before I write. But I don't know what I want to say and that part doesn't matter anyway, so let's move on.
The first real memory I have is the net. It was scratchy and fibrous and my legs got caught in the spaces between the rope strands when I struggled and kicked. I was old enough to fly, because I was flying when they caught me. Don't remember if it was by the cliffs or on the meadow, but I remember seeing Id's cruel smile through the ropes as I tried to bite through them and got splinters in my tongue. That's another real memory.
I didn't know he was Id then. I didn't even know what he was; I'd never seen anything except fairies. He was like a monster from a fairy tale with his feathers bristling from his neck, huge bird wings beating at either side of the net, a curved beak, and bigger than any two fairy stallions put together. The biggest monster I'd ever seen, dragging me out of the air to the ship.
Just like I'd never seen a phoenix, I'd never seen a ship. The bag swayed and twisted as the bird-pony banked down and the ocean swung in and out of my sight. With each swing I caught a closer glimpse of something brown and wooden sitting on the waves. A wooden island, that's what I thought. Well, what else is a boat?
The bird-pony didn't land, just let go of the bag as he swooped over the deck. There was a moment of panic and freefall, then silence as the deck slapped me hard. I'd landed flat on my back and the blue sky above me rocked back and forth. Every few minutes the winged thing that caught me would fly over and drop another net with another struggling foal in it. Most of them were thrashing around but I just laid there on my back, first too dazed to move, then too scared.
A shadow fell over me and I was staring up a pair of fetlocked front legs as thick as tree trunks to a head with a sharp horn in the center and a green mane dipped in red at the tips, like blood. But the mane and the horn hardly registered just then; his size is what made him a monster. He was too big, there was too much of him. I don't mean that he was fat. But his legs were too wide, his head was too long, his chest was too deep, his body was too . . . too something. Sterling is at my ear suggesting words like "coarse" and "grossly substantial," but this is my story and, anyway, I'm not sure what the second one means. So let's move on.
After I got over my first shock I realized that the big horn-pony wasn't looking at me at all, he was looking up in the sky at the bird-pony. This led to a new fear, that he'd step on me. Since his hooves were bigger than I was it was a fear I took seriously. So I gathered all my courage and shouted, "Hey!" At least in my head it was a shout. It came out in more of a quaver. But it made the horn-pony look down, which is what I wanted. Sort of.
His big, too-much face split into a grin that would have been ugly even if his teeth hadn't been yellow, which they were. He said something that I didn't understand, then yelled something else I didn't understand at the bird-pony, who landed on the deck. Not only were they monster-ponies, but they couldn't even speak right.
But they understood each other okay, because after exchanging a few words the bird-pony started dragging netted fairies over to a cage that was built into the deck. That is, the top of the cage was level with the deck and the rest was kind of underneath. More monster ponies were swarming around, opening the top of the cage and helping the blue bird-pony drop them in. A lot of them flapped and tried to get away, but they didn't have a chance. I flapped and struggled too, when my turn came. You have to try.
Baby fairy ponies don't take up a lot of room and the cage was big so it wasn't that crowded. But we still huddled together. Everyone was whispering and crying--softly, because whenever it got too loud something would bash a giant hoof on the top of the cage, and that terrified us. Some I knew, like Sonnig, and others were strangers from rival herds, but none of that mattered now. We were trapped together in that smelly place, feeling sick as the floor rolled back and forth, stepping high and trying to hover to avoid the dirty water covering the floor.
A lot of the foals could no longer fly right. They'd beaten their thin wings to shreds inside the tough rope nets. Sonnig was crying as he flapped his wings; one was crumpled. I whispered to him. I don't remember what I said. It wouldn't have mattered what I'd said. He kept crying. Anyone would have.
[to be continued]
I just wanna give 'em all hugs... (Somewhat off-topic, do you have any of those lovely G3 plush babies with the plastic heads? They're actually really nice for snuggling, I find... :
