Writing Attempt (fail)

Well, that was a bust. All the mentions of the latest write-off hit me in just the right frame of mind that I figured I’d give it a shot. Even got a writeoff.me account to submit something. Gave it a try, got a sub-standard bit of prose out that clocked out at about a dozen words too many. Sure, it would be easy to edit, but it’s not that good. Might submit it just for kicks, but kinda lost the spark of motivation. Not from it being bad. My brain goes through cycles fairly quickly. Mostly it’s because I’m struggling to give it a second try and my brain is just sliding off the prompt of Famous Last Words. Meh, sucks when inspiration just vanishes. Usually I can get it going once I’ve got the creativity pump primed with some forced-out writing, but got nothing this time. My just be because it’s from a standing start instead of one of my actual writing-for-money projects which I’m in the middle of and have lots of character and setting to play with. Figured I’d share what is technically (sort of) the first pony fan fiction I’ve written. Well, besides the headcanon worldbook I’ve been working on. Not sure that counts since it’s not a story and like 90% of the content is reworked stuff from other people. Check below the break for my failure of inspiration. If nothing else, it provides more practice at putting my writing up where people can read it. Plus I’ve now got an account at the writeoff site in case one of the future ones does catch my brain’s attention.

Random short fic by me:

I’m the only pony alive that can honestly say Princess Celestia killed my father. Sure, plenty of ponies and other creatures do say that. They mean it in a more abstract sense that Celestia’s decisions killed someone close to them. The royal guard has had to do some horrible things even in the last few decades. Yet Princess Celestia hasn’t been the wrathful goddess some of the old stories describe her as. So she hasn’t done any personal smiting in millennia. Even my father was an accident, which is somewhat strange in my family.

I’m Grim Comfort and I’m the mortician in Ponyville. It’s a family business in fact. I run it these days. My father ran the business before me, and grandfather before him, and great grandmother before him. What makes my father’s death a bit of a surprise is the special talent that seems to run in the family. See, we can tell when somepony is going to die. Not with great accuracy. Can’t guess any closer than a week or so. We can’t tell how a pony is going to die, which is why we are morticians and not bookies or fortune tellers. Not that we could compete with Pinkie Pie in the latter niche. Mother and Father knew that he was going to pass away soon. All the arrangements had been made and he had decided that before we went he wanted to see Princess Celestia in person at least once. Nopony in our family had ever had a chance to speak to her directly. The immortal goddess of the sun doesn’t attend a lot of funerals in small towns after all.

So he went with mother to Canterlot to visit the royal court. Joining the stream of ponies who wanted a word with our benevolent princess. It was a crowded day and my parents were trying to spend every minute spending time together.  Father wasn’t paying attention, they had to call his name twice to get his attention. He hurried up and bowed. “Blessings be yours, Princess Celest-” He got through almost all of the greeting before looking up. Which is when my father dropped dead. It was quite the scandal and was the first truly shocking death in the family in generations.

I have my own theory to what the cause of death was. Trying to figure out when an immortal will die is probably too much for us to handle. Mortals aren’t meant to contemplate the divine that closely. Which was just a curiosity at first, at least until the Princess’s personal protégé moved into our small town, and a second immortal alicorn showed up. It was mere luck that I wasn’t in the crowd for the summer sun celebration. I end up hiding at work when Princess Celestia visits Twilight Sparkle. I tend to avoid her anyway. Twilight Sparkle had always felt a little funny in my head. Which was weird, until she turned into an Alicorn herself. Which made the weird feeling stronger, but I’m still pretty sure when she’s going to die. No, I don’t talk about future clients. I will mention that when she ascended all her friends started to feel funny too.

All of that is behind me now. I’ve got a family and it’s my time to go. Sometime in the next few days the family business will be under my daughter’s care. I’m sure that Grim’n’Cheerful will do just fine. I’ve decided that I want to test my theory. If I’m wrong, I’ll have a few more days to spend with my family. If I’m right, I’ll be a talking point in Canterlot for years to come. Not to mention that my daughter will know for sure to avoid the Princesses from now on. I’ve left a note explaining my descision to her.

My father had to take a wagon into Canterlot back when he went. I get to ride the train in speed and comfort. I join the line of that day’s petitioners and keep my eyes closed when I get close enough to see the doors into the throne room. I can hear what must be Celestia’s voice. The shuffle of hooves tell me when to move forward. My name is shouted and I move forward and bow. Still with my eyes closed. I thought long and hard what I wanted to say now. They might be my final words after all. So I open my eyes, start slowly raising my head, and look up at our six-limbed ruler as I speak.

“My name is Grim Comfort, you killed my father, prepare to-”

 

Mortician pony picture that had me thinking about mortician ponies.