Bat ponies have long been believed to be extinct; they vanished along with Princess Luna a thousand years ago, or at least that's what the diurnal ponies believe. But when Princess Luna returned, so did the bat ponies, emerging from their hidden village in the Everfree Forest! Candle is one of those ponies; a young bat pony stallion, yearning for exploration. And what better place to explore than the far reaches of the Eastern Desert, the homeland of the zebras?
But when a mistakenly translated letter ends up getting him hitched to his handsome pen-pal, Candle will get far more than he bargained for, including setting off on an adventure across a strange continent! Candle and Zeffir will have to contend with the rainy season, fierce predators, and much worse. But what if, at the end of it, he's not sure he wants a divorce after all? Find out what happens to our daring duo in The Zebra and The Bat!
Written for contest: M/M Shipping Contest
thanks for the submission! really looking forward to reading this once it's done!
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Thank you!! Oh gosh you already found it! I was gonna wait to submit it until it was a little closer to done, I'm just already in love with my boys! I want everyone else to love them too!!
I am greatly intrigued by this start.
I can’t wait for the moment when one of them realizes “Oh shit, I’m gay and I have a boyfriend.”
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Thank you very much! I'm excited too!!
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Right?! I'm so excited! I want to read this story so bad, it's making it harder to write it! I just want to jump to the feelings part!
Randomly-appearing buildings are always safe! Everypony knows that.
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Ha, sorry about that!! There will be more adventures between these two!!
i mean i'd hope he was pretty good at reading it!
#relatable
aww! that is true
aww, that is nice! and the inverted schedule reminds me of how the seasons are inverted in the southern hemisphere, and the oddities in talking to people from there
i guess we will see! since your zebra society will both be original worldbuilding and something seen through a first-time visitor's eyes
meta! and yes, very smart to skip over any part of the story that's unnecessary
and the author was going to have to write the dialogue in rhyme!
and yes! Zecora coming from a specific zebra culture instead of representing all zebra is something very much in my headcanon as well, so i am glad to see it here
aww! so very thoughtful. and foreshadowing???
hmm would quadrupedal beings use "hip-high" as a reference? lol
also very fitting with my own personal worldbuilding! this is like seeing the fic i wanted to write but never set aside the time to
aww! but it's such a simple structure, a single horizontal beam! you'd think somezebra could whip up a quick solution
mmm dellicious!
aww! i am smelling a hint of your Hitch Discourse here
ugh, yes! excuses for deep eye contact! sorry, eye contact is one of my Things and i love it
ooh, intriguing! love highlighting cultural differences through the differences in material culture
hehehe, fun callback
aww, love the awkwardness
i mean what did you expect an "ambassador" to do? silly Candle!
hehe, fun slip
foreshadowing!
ooh, loving this cultural worldbuilding! dang, i might have to steal some
this reminds me of broom-jumping, hmm...
lucky for me, i can read backwards!
aww! that is adorable
well, we'll see how sober Candle feels once someone tells him just what kind of ceremony that was!
sandwiches are universal! there is a version of it in every culture (if one is a bit of a structural anarchist)
yes very nice yes
hahaha
ah, a comedy of errors! i really like how it tied back to how hard it is to write rhyming dialogue, too
ooh, i hope we get to see this
aww, what a depiction of a panic attack. though i lack the personal experience to know how accurate it is, i could feel this
oof! this is certainly an interesting trajectory for a shipfic! it almost feels upside down to how these things normally go
aww! the contrast...
that is quite a situation to be in the middle of!
i have heard a lot about this creature
ah, scars can be like that sometimes! and this is about what i expected from that earlier mention about not being able to go over the crowd
oof, sadly #relatable
aww, a nice contrast to his earlier difficult sleep
disquieting!
that is true, and really makes you think. i'd also imagine delicately thin bat wings to be very susceptible to sunburn!
i don't know about you, but i would listen to the local about things like this!
hahahaha wow Candle is kinda dumb isn't he? i mean wow, all of this just seems so very suspicious. doesn't he know he llives in a world full of magical monsters? not genre-savvy at all!
making me think the house is drawing from Candle's memories
haha, contradicting himself in the very next sentence! and this is my favorite kind of villain: aristocratic and decadent, very fun
oof! and only one chapter to go!
ooh, magic lightning powers? secret pegasus zebra?
big oof! this feels like something semi-autobiographical that i would write
and i definitely see how you rushed to cap this off to stay under the word limit! there's so much love i see in the worldbuilding and these two OCs, and i hope you can continue to explore it as fully as you intended.
This is wonderfully adorable. Love the characters. I hope they are able to be happy.
I want more of these 2 fingers crossed.