That right there was sort of the beginning of the end for me. I wasn't quite ready to present my discovery to the royal family just then. See, I have a thing for drama, so when I come up with a new thing, I go big. I wasn't about to tell the princess that the culmination of over a month's work was a delightful new method of cooking eggs over toast. No, I was going to give her a spread of fried foods so regal she'd throw a feast in its honor. Except she'd be feasting on them. You know what I mean. I am a unicorn, after all, and any proper unicorn knows that anything worth doing is worth doing in style.
Speaking of in style, there are some more things I ought to pack. I've got a bag of holding, so it's not like I have to pack light.
Regardless of whether I'll ever wear it again, I'm not parting with my chef's toque. It was one of my father's gifts to me when I first started work at the palace.
Up to that point I'd just been using a dingy hair net to keep my frizzy locks from flavoring the food. It served fine while I was at school or doing small-time cooking or catering, but Dad figured that my working in the palace meant that I would need swankier duds in order to fit in. Or so he said. I strongly suspect he had just been looking for an excuse to get his little dough girl a fancy hat.
I sure don't blame him. It's been a very good hat, and it's put up with the strain I put it through way better than it has any right to. Kinda like him, come to think of it. Even if I never cook another day in my life (perish the thought), at least I'll have this hat to remember him by. I thank King Lanthanum on his diamond throne that Dad had the foresight to get fireproofing enchantments put on it.
I'm packing a few other items to remember good ponies by, like the brewing thermometer from Mom and a couple of drawings my little brother, Sepia Tone, had made for me.
The family portrait and his rendition of my coat of marks are some of his early works, but since they were parting gifts from when I left home, they're two of my favorites from him. I'd say he did a bang up job, even if he was still fairly new at the time.
He drew himself into the family portrait after the fact, in case you were wondering. That's why he's standing a bit off to the side. Clever guy left the canvas mostly blank for the actual posing, instead sketching our poses into place and taking down which bits were supposed to be which colors onto a notepad. Then he did the same sort of thing with himself in a mirror. It's kind of a paint-by-numbers thing, but with more numbers than I'm used to.
The real gem of my keepsake collection, whether you'll pardon the pun or not, is the torch ruby Outta Stock gave me the night of my promotion to Royal Chef. Now what a memory that was...
He and I are actually fairly close friends. I guess that's bound to happen when two ponies are doing their best to get under each other's skin, but what can you do?
Now, this event went down the night I heard I was being promoted. I was pretty excited about the whole thing, as you may imagine. I was also somewhat chagrined, for reasons that will become clear. Outta Stock was excited too, although it would have been hard for a bystander to pick that up through his smugly satisfied demeanor. You see, his satisfaction came at the expense of the newly appointed Royal Chef. Literally.
"Your ability to sink to new lows never ceases to astound me, Mr. Stock."
"Aaap-ap-ap-ap-ap! That's Sir Stock. Or your highness. Remember the terms of our agreement."
"Well, your royal heinousness, I still can't believe I took you up on it. There has to be a law on the books somewhere protecting the drunk from obligations to any bets or dares they take."
"Tough luck, lady, there isn't. Believe me, I've checked," he said, smirking.
Knowing him, he probably had done so in some degree of seriousness.
"Really, though," I sighed, "even as buzzed as I was, I should have known something was up when you proposed that bet. You don't make bets–"
"I make prophecies paired with some obfuscating horse apples about what happens if I'm wrong," he finished.
I rolled my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him.
"That's not quite how I remember it going down, though," he mused.
"Oh, really," I deadpanned.
"Indeed. I remember it going something like this: I said, 'Dang, Spicy. You're such an awesome cook, they're gonna have to promote you to Royal Chef by the end of the month!' And you were like 'Hah! The day they promote me over everypony's heads to Royal Chef is the day I cook you a four course candlelight dinner while wearing my tackiest formal dress.' Then I, grinning like the diabolical mastermind that I am, took you up on it on the condition that you call me 'sir.' Then you said, 'And if you lose, you're doing all of that stuff. In my tackiest formal dress.'"
Fillies and gentlecolts, I present to you Outta Stock! I swear, that pony missed his calling when he didn't go into theater...
"So... is the food almost done yet? Because I am starving," he said as he made to smoothly sneak a spoonful of soup.
I thwarted his attempt with a thwack to the horn and gained a manic glint in my eye. Due to the nature of those who usually find themselves within the palace kitchens, I didn't find many opportunities to do what came next.
I put on my best visage of righteous indignation and my shrillest, most obnoxious cook's voice, took a deep breath, and cut loose.
"GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN! IT'LL BE READY WHEN IT'S READY!"
This was enough to send Outta Stock galloping from the staff kitchen with his ears pinned down and his tail tucked between his legs.
I am by no means a quiet pony. I'll have to remember this trick for when I'm in exile. Pegasi have really sensitive ears, right? Or was that bats... Anyhow!
When the food was all good and ready (all at the same time, to boot), I levitated it all onto a cart for serving and rolled it out to the mostly depopulated staff lounge where Outta Stock was waiting at a fancily set table, grimacing.
"While I'll be the first to admit that I was kinda asking for that one," he said exasperatedly, "did you have to be quite that freaking loud?! Not only do I enjoy being able to hear, I need to for my job. What if somepony asks for water and I hear 'aqua regia?'"
"Oh come off it. I sincerely doubt I was loud enough to do any permanent damage–"
He interrupted by nodding his head vigorously with a practiced expression of barely suppressed "pain" across his muzzle, ears, and eyes.
"I swear, your parents must have made some unholy pact to get your lungs swapped with a pair from one of those demonic pegasi. My ears are still ringing! If I end up losing my job over this, I fully expect you to use the extra money from your promotion to keep me in the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed," he continued with all of the mock-seriousness in the world.
“Okay, okay, I'm sorry, your highness. Now do you want me to dish us up, or are you too injured to partake in this glorious feast?" I said, sweeping my hoof grandly over the food cart.
"Praise Princess Topaz, I am miraculously cured of my impending deafness! Let's get started!"
And so I lit the candles and the fuel for the chafing dishes, floated over and filled our mead glasses (with some of the special stuff I brought from home), hovered the wildflower and saffron petal salads into place, and began dinner.
"Spicy, I've got got to say I'm impressed," he remarked as he levitated another clump of petals. "I'm not usually a salad advocate, but may King Lanthanum toss me into the Sun if these flowers don't taste very nearly as good as they look."
"You flatterer," I replied through half a saffron petal. "I bet you're just saying that so I'll do more of your cooking."
Due to the character of upper class cuisine, that's actually a pretty good compliment. Traditionally, our salads have been more of a visual art form than a means of exploring the frontiers of flavor. I'd usually enlist my little brother the artist to help me make new salads whenever he'd visit. We didn't always see eye to eye on our creations, but we usually came up with something we could agree on before we finished a salad session, even if that something was that salads were stupid and so were we.
Effectively, classy ponies would have prepared for them bouquets that were technically edible. Me, though? I didn't really see why something that looked that fancy couldn't taste and smell good as well.
This particular salad, for example, was composed of some mildly fragrant whole flowers that I wouldn't mind snacking on by themselves, saffron petals (which taste nothing like saffron the spice, which comes from the stamens of the flower), and some salmonberry vinaigrette. The result was a striking potpourri of reds, purples, and blues that smelled like a mountain meadow and tasted like nectar waiting to become honey. It was a salad to shut up and savor, and so we did.
Once we'd both finished contemplating our salads, I set our empty plates aside and brought the next course to the table. It was a fairly simple rabbit soup. Just some wildflower greens (from which the flowers used in the aforementioned salad had been severed. Wouldn't want them to go to waste, after all), some chopped up rosemary from my private herb garden, and, naturally, broth that the rabbit had been partially boiled in.
And maybe a hint of saffron to go with the saffron greens.
"Y'know," I said between spoonfuls of soup, "I was awfully tempted to turn down that promotion."
Gotta give Outta Stock credit for being a quick eater, because he was already two thirds done with his soup at this point.
"Really?” *shlip* “You don't say.” *slrp* “What could have possessed you to do that?" he drawled distractedly as he lifted his bowl to slurp the rest of his soup down. He was clearly enjoying his soup a bit too much to participate in a proper conversation.
Oh-ho-ho. This was just too perfect.
“It would have been almost worth being a lower level cook for eternity to see you cook a big meal in this dress.”
*SPLCHSSHHFFF*
Incidentally, that's the sound of a simple rabbit soup being atomized into a fine mist. All over my face. Got a good look at his face while it happened, though, so it was totally worth it.
"Pfa-hahaa-ho-hoh!" I cackled as I attempted to dab my face dry with my napkin. One of the curses of fluffiness is that it's way harder to clean liquids out of your coat.
"Yeah, laugh it up," he groused while fighting to hold down a chuckle of his own. "You made me waste a nice bowl of perfectly good rabbit soup in the name of making me imagine myself in an emerald-studded cerulean dress...
"Though, come to think of it," he snarked with a snicker, "it'd probably look loads better on me than on your egregious orangeness."
"First off, I'm clearly amber, not orange. You don't get a pass for being male, since you just now correctly used 'cerulean' in a sentence.
"Second," I whispered hoarsely as I levitated my mead glass to my snout, glanced behind him, and subtly charged a second spell, "don't look now, but I think that's a guard."
His charcoal gray coat turned a shade closer to ash as he cautiously turned to look at the wholly uninteresting empty corridor behind him.
*CLULSH*
That sound was the result of my suddenly flinging my bowl to give him a new "hat." It's a shame it was half filled with perfectly good rabbit soup at the time.
"Oh, I got you good there! Consider it payback for making a 'long shot' bet based on insider info," I taunted, punctuating my remark with a triumphant raspberry.
"Which was payback for the when you fed me a 'peace offering' of alfalfa cakes filled with green dye and made me think I had Wise Acher's Disease when my pee turned green," he remarked as he floated over some napkins to towel off with.
I giggled. "That was a good one, wasn't it?"
"Yes," he said with a chuckle that was oddly dry for how much soup he was still covered in, "yes it was, but not as good as that one time I set up a bunch of clues to trick you into thinking there was a plot to kidnap you and shear your coat for use in a new line of sweaters."
I will have you know that Outta Stock can be very subtle and convincing when he puts his mind to it. Anypony would have fallen for that. Anypony. Also, I didn't know him nearly as well then as I do now.
We've had a good natured prank war going ever since he gave me a bag of bricks of some kind of really sour crystal disguised as salt as a "Welcome to Your New Job at the Palace" present. As much as I love salt, I couldn't resist sampling the merchandise. It was so incredibly sour that I couldn't even squeeze out a startled yelp because my mouth had puckered so hard.
A few days later, a few bricks' worth of this new special extra sour seasoning found its way into Outta Stock's dinner and he found himself hoisted by his own petard. And thus began the greatest prank war in the palace's history since the fabled prank war of Grand Boffo vs. Harlequine.
Sometimes the war would escalate and nearly go too far. Sometimes it'd die down to a dull roar. What was constant, though, was that we'd always share a good laugh about it, prankster and prankee together, when we got together again afterwards.
"I don't think I'll ever fully repay you for that one. Now if justifiable arson were an actual thing, though... maybe I could abuse my new position and float the idea to the princess?" I mused. "They say the fastest way to a pony's heart is through their stomach; I'd bet it's the quickest way to their ears, too."
"Meh, I'd been meaning to bring my place's fire retardation gems up-to-date for a while now anyhow," he said with a dismissive flick of his horn. ''Anyhow, now that you have demonstrated your soup-based superiority, would you mind serving up the next course?"
"Tee-hee-hee" *snrk* "Silly me!" I chortled as I floated the main course onto the table. It was the rabbit that had so graciously lent its flavor to the well (ab)used soup earlier, but roasted and dressed up on a bed of rosemary spears and glazed with saffron-infused honey.
Some might find it a bit macabre to eat the rabbit after eating his food and then drinking his bath, but that's the way the courses are ordered. What can you do? Not that I was complaining about that dinner: it was far too delicious for any of that nonsense.
I carved up the coney and divided it between the two of us, giving the stallion the more generous portion. I like the taste of rabbit fine, but eating meat is a bit exhausting and tedious if you don't have the teeth for it. Some lucky mares have nice, stallion-like canines that let them tear into meat with stallion-like gusto, but the rest of us girls just have to make do with our knives, incisors, and molars.
So while I got to cut my coney to tiny chewable chunks, Stocky over there got to float his meat up to his mouth directly for tearing. When I'm dining with another mare, I usually look forward to this part of the meal: since we wouldn't have anything in our mouths for a few minutes, it would provide a perfect opportunity to chat. For stallions, though, having a meat course in a meal usually means a time of wordless (if not quite quiet) contentment.
“Is the fierce predator done eviscerating his prey yet?” I snarked, somewhat irked at being forced by my lack of silencing spells to listen to his gory conquest of that poor three quarters of a rabbit.
He lowered the rabbit piece from his muzzle, said a cheeky "Nope!" and continued his barbaric feasting. Stallions...
I released a resigned, defeated sigh and took a sip of my mead between chewing on chunks of coney. Not to blare my own horn, but it wasn't like I could blame him for his behavior. After all, this is my cooking we're talking about.
I wonder if that's how pegasi eat? Seems demonically barbaric enough. What do they eat in the desert, anyhow? Sand? No, that doesn't make any kind of sense. Now where was I?
Oh right, finishing dinner. Watching Stock eat that rabbit was actually kind of adorable, if you could ignore how repulsive it was. In kinda the same way as watching your pet dog chow down on a well-deserved bowl of table scraps after he's been good all day.
So we finished our rabbit bits, he in messy bliss and I torn between disgust, amusement, and a somewhat lesser degree of pleasure than his.
Once I'd finished chewing my last morsel (and he swallowed his last chunk. Judged those portion sizes perfectly!), I refilled our mead glasses and floated out our desserts.
"Behold the pièce de résistance, the Dessert Desert Crumble!" I pronounced with a flourish.
It was comprised of ground-up crystallized honey interspersed with oats, and looked like crackly, scorched earth with rocks, sand, and salt. There was some salt in there, too.
“You ought to be proud, Stocky! You'll be the second pony to ever taste this!” I exclaimed.
“It's like eating a dessert wasteland,” he quipped.
I kept my silence for a long moment, doing my darndest to pretend I hadn't heard that. He will burn someday for his punny impudence. It's a shame that I won't get to be the one to light the match.
"Really, though," he continued, "this recipe is a keeper. It looks fancy," he took a bite, "it tastes fancy, and on top of all that, it's got that exotic je ne sais quoi that earned you your promotion in the first place. This is a very Amber Spice dessert, and that's a very good thing.
"It's this kind of thing that makes me like you, Spicy" he said after taking a sip of his mead, eyes shining with unexpected sincerity. "You look at pieces of a tired, bland world, and you mix them up and make them interesting again. Just look at this. Oats, salt, and honey. How bland of ingredients are those? I probably had the same things for breakfast. And then here you go, turning them on their ears to make them into a desert fit for a princess! You live to make life interesting, to 'spice' things up, as it were, and that's a goal I can really get behind."
It's that kind of thing that makes putting up with Outta Stock worth it. He may prank you from here to the moon and seem generally insufferable to an outside observer, but it's all sincerely in good fun. He'll tease you relentlessly or flatter you shamelessly, but only because he knows that you love it deep down.
It took me a couple of months through our prank war to realize it, but just about everything he does is centered around one purpose: livening up dull palace life for us ponies. If he has to mix some iron salts in with the alchemists' fuel pellets and give them a show to do so, so much the better.
I wasn't kidding when I said he missed his calling by not going into theater. Or at least stand-up comedy. Then again, he'd probably get enough rotten food tossed at him in the latter to feed a mid-sized hamlet for a week.
Regardless, Stocky's special talent doesn't really even have anything to do with his employment as a stockroom clerk. He told me that really had more to do with family connections, family tradition, and the prospect of getting an inflated government salary for a cushy government job. I'd bet saffron to alfalfa cubes the real reason he came here instead of taking a job in entertainment, though, is here he gets to use a more personal touch rather than perform for some nebulous, broad audience. Here, he gets to directly interact on an informal and personal level with dozens of ponies rather than spray a diffuse cloud of joy nowhere in particular.
Enough about how great a guy Outta Stock is on the inside and back to the dinner. At this point he'd drained two thirds of his glass of mead.
"Y'know, I'd almost feel guilty for making that rigged bet if it weren't the only way to get you to treat yourself like this for your promotion. I mean seriously, Spicy, what were you planning to do tonight?"
"I was going to... I don't know... I guess go home and get drunk with my family, maybe?"
Okay, so I'm not always the best at planning my time. And that's why I'm a cook and not an event planner.
"And instead I got you a five-star candlelight dinner for two with a handsome stallion, cooked by the very pony who cooks for the Princess herself."
I opened my mouth to make a quip about wondering where this handsome stallion I was supposed to eat with was, but then I stopped to really appreciate what he'd just said.
While it would have been nice to just have a mildly rambunctious event in a back room of The Amber Mare with my parents (and maybe my little brother), I had to admit that this was the best I'd eaten in quite a while. While I had sampled nearly every dish I'd made to make sure they'd turned out as intended, I had never really cooked for myself when I was on the job, and it was always hard to get motivated to cook something fancy when there's nopony there to enjoy it with you.
"Well look at that, you punk! You actually managed to do me a favor, in the blot-packwards way of yours. I could almost give you a hug. Or maybe a noogie."
"Oh stop it, Spicy. Too much more of this and you'll make me blush!"
If I'd believed him for a second, I'd have kept going relentlessly.
"Really, though," I replied thoughtfully, "I've got to do this more often."
He nodded heartily.
"Sans the dress, of course."
He pouted.
"No, not even for you, Stocky.
"Once a month sounds reasonable to me. They're not all gonna be this fancy, but I'll try to make something new for each one. Sound good to you?"
Too bad I couldn't keep that creative streak up forever. Figure I could have lasted another year or two at least on that second wind I picked up from the discovery of frying... but I digress.
"Yuppers!" he chirped.
"Don't say that. Only my dad gets to say that, and it's barely okay when he does it.
"And Stocky, thanks for the bet. It feels good to actually get to see a pony enjoy my cooking, and it feels pretty good to eat it myself, too."
"Oh, don't thank me yet. You haven't even seen your present yet." he said with a smug smirk. Or maybe it was a sincere smile? Hard to tell, face and track-record like his.
"As you might have guessed, I saw this promotion coming a mile away. Being in touch with a good portion of the palace rumor mill and knowing the right ponies to get my facts checked has given me some time to think about how I'd commemorate it.
"It was obvious enough that I should get you to do what you love, the way you love, and, eventually, for the reason you love doing it. I may have tacked on some details to sweeten the deal for myself, but what would you expect?"
I rolled my head in a shrug.
"It wasn't enough, though. Sure, it was a good prank with great results, but it still amounted to making you do something for me, even if you benefited from it, too.
"So I thought about it. What could I do for you to properly celebrate the night your career was made? I could have organized a party, but you don't like large parties filled with faces you don't know. So then I thought of what else you bring to special parties: presents!
"But then I had to figure out what to actually get you. Let me tell you, filly, you are not easy to shop for. Raid the stockroom for some new unorthodox tools for you to use? I might be able to smooth-talk my way out of trouble for stealing supplies, but it would still feel cheap and unimaginative. Get you a new hat? Also unoriginal, and I strongly suspect that I'd find my pelt coating a new cushion if I so much as suggested replacing your current toque."
"You would be correct," I deadpanned. "Now, not to seem impatient or anything, but what the hay did you end up getting me? You've got me curious!"
"All in due time, Spicy, all in due time," he replied as he got up, blew out the candles, and returned to his seat.
"I could have gotten you a giant brick of salt," he continued as he ignited his horn's spring-green glow to telekinetically rummage through his saddlebags below the table, "but you'd probably only use it to cook for me for reasons that need no discussion."
I blew him a raspberry at that. Yeah, no need to discuss favors that have already been returned.
"The salt brick was a bust, but it got me thinking of what... other... kinds of rocks you might like," he said, apparently struggling to find the object in his pack.
"So I thought to myself, this mare likes practical things first and foremost. Hay, she even lugs a triple beam balance from my stockroom to her kitchen every day because it's 'just better' than relying on measuring scoops for dry ingredients. She likes being flamboyant and flashy, too, and is a bit of a drama queen to boot.
"And then, like a magelight gem had just lit up in my head," he announced as a ruby red glow suddenly flooded the room from his saddlebag, "I knew precisely what to get you."
And then he levitated a glowing torch ruby out of his bag as I stared on in wonder.
Torch rubies are rather spectacular things. It's true that a magelight gem is nothing special. Hay, most homes in Unicornia close enough to a leyline to tap into one are outfitted with them for general lighting purposes. That is to say, nearly all Unicornian homes. Half the reason we settled on Terra's Horn in the first place was its top being a massive leyline locus, even for a mountain.
Magelight gems are terribly mana-inefficient, though, so using one as a portable lantern without a nearby leyline just isn't done. I mean, who'd seriously consider waving one of those mana hogs around when anypony could just light up their horn? I guess maybe somepony like Pierce would do it to show off how big his mana font was... Ugh. Pierce. That's one chump I won't be missing when I'm in exile.
Torch rubies, though, are a horse of a different color. Instead of lacing a gem with a cheap high-capacity, low-efficiency shiner spell matrix to pump a constant stream of mana through, torch rubies are fire rubies enchanted with a couple of different, more energy-friendly if more expensive, interleaved spell matrices.
There's the complicated glowy one that makes the light. If I heard the salesmare right, it's more efficient than normal partly because it only makes red light that can pass through the red fire ruby. And heat. Torch rubies get pretty hot, but they're still loads more mana-efficient than your run-of-the-mill magelight gem because heat rays are apparently a lot easier to make than light. Who'd have thought?
Torch rubies were first conceived of as camping equipment for those hikers who want to see Terra's Horn's wild side, which probably explains why they make heat as well as red light. Also, something about how red light doesn't screw up your night vision so you can still see outside of the gem's glow.
Maybe this present was conceived as an attempt to get me out of the palace more? Topaz knows my flabby flanks would have appreciated the exercise...
Where was I again? Oh, right. Enchantment number two. That's the other cool thing about torch rubies: how they're powered! Most magelight gems need a constant supply of mana from an outside source. While torch rubies still need to get their mana from somewhere, they're not nearly as picky about where it's from.
The salesmare said some fancy words like thermothaumic and photothaumic that my mom told me meant it could be charged up by heat and light. The other cool thing about it is that it's actually quite cool to the touch whenever it's charging up. That, and it kinda sucks in the light in a small area around it whenever it's not busy pumping light out. The resulting lensing is pretty amusing, so telekinetically tossing it to and fro makes a great way to pass the time.
Not long after I got this gift, I tried charging it up by shaking it to see what would happen. It did get charged a little, but I think that was just its absorbing light from my horn and levitation aura. You can charge the gem directly off of your own magic, too, but that kinda defeats the purpose.
Turning the gem's light on and off is controlled by casting a couple of cantrips that everypony with a horn learns in magic kindergarten. Calibrating the heat and light output takes some technical knowhow that I've never been willing to pursue. If I did, I'd probably be spending my days tinkering with gems instead of food.
Wonder if I'd have found a way to get myself exiled in that profession? Maybe I'd have accidentally discovered that the most efficient way to turn mana into light required me to shout "Unicorns suck, mud ponies rule, and Princess Topaz's dad's a pegasus!" from atop Terra's Horn?
So yeah. Torch rubies. Warm red light that lasts several hours if you keep it charged up, which isn't all that hard if you leave it someplace warm and bright. Shouldn't be any problem at all in the Grand Pegasopian Desert.
Even if it wasn't going to be so incredibly useful out there, I'd still be bringing it along anyhow. It's easily the best memento I've got for my best friend. Its being both a pretty and practical thing to pack is a pretty nice bonus, though. Stocky wasn't kidding when he said how I absolutely loved that sort of thing.
Now, Outta Stock isn't my boyfriend. He's already in a deeply committed relationship. I mean seriously, no stallion has ever loved a mare like that stallion loves himself.
Okay, that last bit was a load of horse apples and I know it. Dangit, why in the world didn't I ever go out with him when I had the chance!? Even if it didn't work out, it'd at least have been interesting. Hay, that dinner was practically a date and I didn't notice! Could he have been coming on to me that whole time and I didn't notice? Dear Lanthanum was I thick! And if I hear one chuckle out of you about my girth, I swear on Lanthanum's Diamond Throne I will gore you.
I guess you could say I've been married to my work since I got to the palace, and the pending messy divorce has put me in the mood for some rebound action. Well, less of a divorce and more of a widowing, but you get the idea. Well, you know what they say about hindsight being 20/20. Also gets you a great view of other ponies' plots too, apparently...
That said, he'd already been the best friend I could hope for here. The guy would cover for me when I got sick (or just really needed a break, sometimes at his insistence) by telling my boss something that'd make said boss look at me the next day with an air of concern mingled with abject terror. Sometimes that boss was the Princess. Him putting the bits together to get me that torch ruby, though? That was something special.
"So what do you think, Spicy?" he said coyly. "Is this good, or should I take this back and find you some extra sour 'salt' instea—"
“That. Is so... Awesome! Thankyou Thankyou THANKYOU!” I cheered as I leaped across the table to give him a giant fluffy tackle hug of friendship.
There were no survivors.
Darling, you do whatever you think needs doing. This is your story, and you should never feel bad about taking the extra time to improve.
2440102
Fair enough. I just don't want everypony to think I'm dead when in fact I'm sitting on a complete chapter.
Aw yeah, it's back :D
Sweet stuff, the only downside is that now I really want a giant fluffy tackle hug of friendship :(
2440227 Thats what a blog post is for darl :P
I missed this story.
I look forward to more of the best, fluffiest, funniest exile.
2441299
Posts like this just make my day and make me want to keep writing. Glad to see people were awaiting it eagerly! I'll do my best to not take four months getting this next chapter to you.
Next chapter's gonna be a bit of a doozie, too. If all goes according to plan, we'll actually get to see just what Amber Spice does to get herself kicked out of Unicornia. I remember some people wondering about when I'd start to get to the actual heresy (SPOILER ALERT: you've already read a couple chapters of stealth-heresy. END SPOILER), so the next chapter should be enlightening and should deliver what these people are looking for.
There will be shenanigans, too. Also, Spicy will invent a food so amazingly delicious, that its existence has already leaked into our own human history across the void between worlds.
Wonderful to see that this is still going strong instead of rotting away somewhere!
2442162
Me too!
*Surreptitiously shoves escaping slimy, smelly super-sized squid back into the ink-squeezing chamber*
LightningFaaaaaaaaaaaasssttt!!!!!
2442958
I actually had no idea that boysenberries weren't naturally occurring.
Most likely, this is a case of independent invention. Both human and Unicornian societies have access to agriculture, science, and breeding techniques, so I don't see why they couldn't both invent similar hybrids and cultivars. Saffron as we know it is a man-made mutant and the flower is entirely sterile, so it has to be grown via cloning from cuttings and such. These ponies are doing the same thing the humans did in the case of saffron, so creating boysenberries shouldn't be too much of a stretch for them.
Alternatively, it's a case of calling a schmeerp a rabbit, and the food I'm calling a boysenberry is completely unrelated to the food we're familiar with and I'm calling it by a familiar name for the sake of simplicity.
Another possibility is magic. It has already been established that the mythical schnozberries exist in this universe, so why can't unicorns have access to delicious true boysenberries while we humans are stuck with a pale imitation made through hybridization?
Pick whichever explanation floats your boat!
2441421
...
is this food french toast?
how about eclair's?
or maybe canolle's?...
how bout the dounut?
lol great chapter~
(now i'm hungry...)
Yikes! What Kind of stockroom is Outta in charge of? Cooking ingredients and corrosive reagents together?!
It may be biologically possible, but idea of ponies in the MLP universe chowing down on game animals is very jarring; like suddenly down shifting your car from fourth to first gear on the motorway. (BTW that recipe looks delicious and intriguing. I have a kilo of lamb in the freezer and a jar of raw Sourwood honey... Hmmm...)
Heh heh heh.
I love the turn of phrase there.
I imagine Outta may have used this as an opportunity to sneak in a few small pranks at Amber's expense by describing the most embarrassing symptoms he can think of:
"Did your rash clear up Spicy?"
"Did your horn really turn that colour and go floppy Spicy?"
2441421
Hmmm...
Spicy creates a new, tasty food.
Spicy has just discovered deep-frying.
Fried Mars bar perhaps?
I am looking forward to the next chapter.
2444245
Not a Cooking stockroom, but an alchemical stockroom. Spicy just loves her alchemical equipment is all.
Glad you liked that turn of phrase. I was particularly proud of that one.
Also glad somebody got that subtext with the excuses.
Let me know how that lamb and honey goes!
Hail and greetings from the land of WRITE! I'm OtterMatt, and I'm here because you lit up the WRITE-signal and requested help, though it's not easy to see what for, to be honest.
Most EqD-accepted authors aren't beating down our doors for assistance, generally because they've already got their prereading staff in line. Else they wouldn't have made EqD, you see.
That being said, I've taken the time to read through your story here, and I'm impressed. Impressed, and slightly sorry that I didn't see this story back in January when it was featured. I'll outline a few of my thoughts and perceptions of this story as they occurred to me in my reading, and if you're looking for a more detailed analysis of anything in particular, let me know!
Alright, then. Chapter 1...
Okay, interesting premise. I like where this looks like it's gonna be going. Amber Spice (lol... Spicy ) is adorable. She reminds me of so many female supporting characters from the anime genre, loud, energetic, likeable, total drama queen, etc. I gotta say, though, this Equestria seems quite a bit darker than I'm used to seeing. Meat being hunted and eaten? Fur in the clothing? Never mind the pony factionization and racial hatred. One thing I notice is these little action-oriented interludes, things like *slurp*. Personally, I'd prefer it if things were a bit more narrative, but that's just me, I guess.
Chapters 2 and 3...
More of those confounded asterisk-bound onomatopoeia. Meh, I say. Meh. Pretty quickly forgotten, though, because this is one of the few times in recent memory that a story has made me chuckle out loud during a reading. "Temporary horseshoe-shaped cutie marks"... Lawl. I really like how seamless the world-building is here, too. I feel like there's really a great big land out there waiting to be discovered, and I can't WAIT for the story to start happening and exploring it.
Hmm... that's mildly annoying, though... Hopefully it'll go away soon...
Chapter 4 and beyond!
Fugging adorable filly. All of the d'aww. All of it.
As far as that little foible I noticed back there... Nope.avi It's still there and getting more and more prominent. And I refer, of course, to the bizarre blurring of the reality lines this story is getting in love with. Why bring in outside concepts for the sake of cheap laughs? Facehoof, plot, etc are terms to BRONIES, not PONIES. What you're doing with that is weakening your world by leaning it on our own world like a crutch. There's so many things that you can see in this story that just sorta wrinkles my nose up in an irritated fashion—human implements and concepts that are ported into the story without explanation or even making them more pony-friendly.
Ah well, what do you expect? I'm a critic, so I critique. That might be a personal beef, but it gets right up on my tits, as the Brits would say. As far as the story itself goes, I really have only one point to touch on:
WHEN THE HELL DOES THE STORY START?
6 chapters of backstory is really, really pushing it, and there's no real indication that we're about to embark on the epic journey we seem to be expecting, either. Not that all of these little stories aren't adorable, or fun, or what have you, but how does any of this support the story we're supposed to be hearing? Unless, of course, you're just using the banishment as a Hitman:Bloodmoney-esque framing device and telling us all of your character's exploits with no actual intention of carrying the story off into the exile itself, in which case I will quickly remove the star I've given you.
Don't get me wrong, this story is very well-written. It's clever, silly, and perhaps even a bit anarchic. I really do like this story: You've clearly done your homework and created a deep, growing, fully-realized character here (and at least part of a world to put her in), but 20,000 words in, I'm left without a clear picture of what this story is supposed to be.
After all of this, your story is EqD-featured. It's in the top 1% of all stories in pony fiction. It's basically as well-written as one could expect short of actual publication. With that in mind, take my advice or leave it as you will, but I'd like to see the focus tightened up a bit. Tell the story that we're here to read, and let the other stuff fall by the wayside for now. That's what other stories are for.
Final Verdict: 4.5/5 Pinkies
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- OtterMatt, WRITE Co-Founder and Composer Laureate
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2537945
Thanks for the review! You bring up some issues that people have been kinda pointing out to me, but I hadn't gotten around to taking seriously enough yet. Namely, there's the onomatopoeia and my story taking forever to get off the ground.
As for the asterisked onomatopoeia, I'm not quite sure what to do there. I don't see it much in serious literature (maybe there's a reason for that...), so I'm not sure what the conventions for it are. It just feels so perfect for things like the grease fire. As a prelude to Spicy's reaction there, I feel its abruptness helps a lot. If you have any ideas on how to better incorporate onomatopoeia or know of a literary device that let's me get across the noise with similar abruptness, please let me know.
Regarding the importation of human implements: Care to point out some examples? The only clear case I can remember is Sepia Tone's cutie mark displaying a human paintbrush. I might end up fixing that one so that it's a brush designed by a unicorn so it has no handle and is just a bunch of fibers bound together at one end. The graphite rod forming the other part of his mark, though, I can't imagine taking a better shape. Cylinders are just so conveniently shaped for grinding the ends down into cones that it doesn't matter that they're also easily grippable by hand. I'd thought I'd been taking pains to avoid nonsensically shaped tools in this 'verse, and was a little proud of the survival knife that wasted no space on a handle since it was meant to be handled entirely by magic.
What would you have a unicorn use instead of a handleless mixing "spoon," by the way? Perhaps some form of horizontal S-shaped thing with lips along the leading edges, which a unicorn would magically spin to agitate a bowl of ingredients? I could go that route, but then I'd have to explain the device (or at least define it), which Spicy wouldn't feel the need to do for her audience as it'd be an everyday object for her. I could get away with describing the survival knife (and stealthily hint that Unicornian knives had no handles) because the knife was an unusual object she'd want to explain.
I could talk about this at length, and I'd love to see what human tools I'd accidentally slipped in, as ponies using tools obviously meant for humanoids is a pet peeve of mine that I'd been partly writing this fic to avoid. Please show me what I missed.
As for the bronyisms that had slipped in there, I find it's a matter of personal taste. I figure it's fine as long as the audience understands what's being said. And isn't 20% cooler. Memes longer than a single word are where I draw the line. Don't see anything wrong with face hoof, as it accurately describes a (canonically seen) equine facepalm-equivalent, facefrog just doesn't roll off the tongue as well and is harder for readers to understand.
If there's any brony reference that's particularly egregious, aside from the word "plot," please point it out so I can do something about it.
I have a bit of a confession to make about the adventure after Spicy's exile. The adventure through the world I'm constructing does happen eventually, but it doesn't happen until the projected sequel, Desert Spice. Tastes Like Heresy is designed to end with Amber Spice getting exiled and finding herself in the desert, collapsing by the end of the epilogue as she sees winged shadows swooping towards her. The next story begins with her being rescued by a vanguard of a pegasus caravan, and the adventure takes off from there.
This story was always intended to give a complete picture of who Amber Spice is, what ponies tend to think of her, and why she gets ejected from unicorn society. It's why I chose the slice of life tag. It was also intended to show people a world I'd been building in my mind and lay groundwork for showing them even more of the world in the future. From people commenting on how they're waiting for the action and adventure to happen, I'm getting the feeling that I've accidentally been promising people a different story from the one I'd intended to tell. The story I seem to be promising is actually the sequel to this one. Perhaps I could change this story's title and description to better indicate what the reader is getting into. Any suggestions on that front? Maybe Amber Spice would make a good title, but it feels a little bland...
By the way, the next chapter is pretty much slated to be the last one aside from the epilogue. It's got the story's climax in it, which should finish explaining how Spicy gets herself banished to the desert.
I really appreciated the review. It showed me that I'd done a good deal of what I'd set out to do, like the worldbuilding and creating a likeable character, and it pointed out some issues I need to look at closer. Echo chambers get stale, so I relish adding new voices to my feedback pool so I have more than my own opinion to go by. I look forward to hearing more from you about what I've done right and wrong and how to make my work better if you're interested.
Hope I didn't come off as petulant or pretentious. I hate it when I do that.
It seems my story has accrued an additional dislike. Any chance I'll get a comment to see what was wrong with my fic? Feedback is always appreciated, even if it's negative.
2540284
Glad to be of assistance. I'll try to clarify a bit.
Onomatopoeia is a literary device, and like all literary devices, it loses its effectiveness the more you use it. It dilutes the pool, as it were. The one place I think you really should be using it is when the pot blows up in Spicy's face. That part is priceless. The rest of it really should be described in narrative, though. Instead of *slurp*, just say something like "I gave it a taste. Meh, needs more salt..." The reason this is preferred is that it requires less mental energy for the reader. Narrative is easy to follow and flows the way you want it to, but when we see an onomatopoeia (especially a more nebulous one like *float*... ), we have to stop and interpret what it means. It disrupts pacing, is the major sin there. As with things like extended alliteration, profanity, and such, use them like your katana: keep them sheathed until you need to draw blood.
As to the other major point I had, I may have used the wrong word when I said "implements." There are a few devices that might not make sense (try thinking in terms of having magic FIRST, and see what things would be invented to fill the gaps in that), but most of what I was referring to was the writing style and conventions. There are parts of the tale that just don't feel pony enough, for lack of a way to really describe it well. It's an abstract concept at best, and it really does come down to my impression of it versus your view of the story, so you can take or leave that one as you see fit.
I do feel like the lack of the epic storyline IS a bit of a cockblock. I think the general impression is that we're going to get that, especially after it was the first thing mentioned in the story. It would have worked better if you had just told the story in sequence and gotten to the banishment at the very end, especially since it ruins what should be the climax point of THIS story. Since we know what's going to happen, we're waiting for it TO happen. You probably should have played your cards slightly closer to your vest, in my opinion.
At any rate, I'm hoping to see more. And if you need any more art in the future, maybe give me a call?
Whew, caught up now.
3038575
Glad to hear it! Now if only I could get this dang Unicornia Day Pageant scene written...
My sluggish summer writing aside, how are you liking the story so far?
Good lord dude, you gonna post something new or what?!?
3079333
Yes. It is crazy difficult for me to write the play within a story scene, though, which is what's taking me so long. Need to introduce characters, history, more fantastic racism, and background story data very quickly. Sadly, I don't think Princess Platinum is going to win me any prizes for character depth.
I can't just leave it out, either, as it's a key part of the story. My editor and guy I bounce ideas off of being in Navy Boot Camp for the past couple months doesn't help either. :/
It is still coming along, though, and it'll likely go a lot faster now that college is back on so I have extended passing periods to fill with writing. My art rate should pick up as well, since I have more time to doodle during boring classes.
Glad to see you're thinking about this story. It's good to be remembered. Hit me up if you're interested in my bouncing chunks of story off your noggin for quality control and R&D purposes over skype.
3082781 Whatever helps get this thing moving sounds like a good idea to me! My Skype is the same as this username, as listed in my bio, so feel free to add me if that's something you'd like help with.
Fair warning though, I'm leaving town in a few hours to start my own college experience.
3082813
Good luck!
You might just find some walls of text dumped into your Skypechat one of these nights.
3082998 Thanks! And I look forward to it!
Please tell me that citric acid ended up in a dessert or candy somehow.
11466292
Some found its way into a revenge gift, at any rate.