New side-story to Ordo ab Chao

I just published the first two parts to a new story I wrote: Aureax Ferri

There are quite a few things I regret about Ordo ab Chao, e.g., I would fix the early modern English verb conjugations and cut out a lot of them and split up Chapter XII into two different chapters. I still look back at it now and cringe when I see some parts of it, not things like spelling mistakes (I think I got all of those!), things like just how the characters react and talk and stuff like that. But still, it’s my first serious fan fiction (by “serious” I mean in the sense that it’s my first fan fiction that isn’t utterly shit. When I was really young, [think eight or nine or younger, I’m not sure] I wrote some really bad Halo fan fictions that I refuse to associate with my name now), and it occupied the better part of my time for five months (I had no idea writing was so time consuming). When I began working on it seriously, I had realized that I actually had no idea to write and that I had been writing the wrong way for my entire life; it forced me to pick up the Chicago Manual of Style and reteach myself how to write. But I learned an important skill I will use for the rest of my life. Ordo ab Chao taught me how to write, and it actually made it onto Equestria Daily, and a few people read it; so, all in all, I really can’t complain. No matter what, Ordo ab Chao will always have a special place in my heart.

I just wrote a short story in the same universe, a story that I had realized I had forgot to include only after all the chapters of Ordo ab Chao were published. It’s based off a cute real-life historical anecdote (since lord knows that Ordo ab Chao didn’t have enough of those already!), and I use the word “based” in the incredibly loosest sense possible. Originally, I was going to simply use ponies to tell the cute anecdote . . . but then I kind of got carried away, and the story became something all on its own, with many references—a few modern-day ones, too.

This should have been included in the original story—or perhaps not. On one hand, it’s a really funny (in a dark kind of way) historical anecdote, and anecdotes like these are the reason I wrote Ordo ab Chao in the first place. But on the other hand, it ended up being longer than Chapter XII, and it focuses on one of the citizens of the Union who is never brought up again for the whole story (kind of like the song writer). It’s too long to be a chapter, so I guess it’s for the best that it’s a short, optional, side-story. It really is a novella in its own right.

It’s called Aureax Ferri, and it takes place shortly after the events of Chapter X in Ordo ab Chao. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, I truly do believe I put my all into it, that it’s the greatest thing I’ve written to date, prose-wise; and I’m very proud of it. On the other hand, I just realized that this will be read by so few people, as it’s really only accessible to those who’ve read Ordo ab Chao (at least, those who’ve read up to Chapter X) and liked it enough to want to read a side-story.

To those people, few as they are—but no less appreciated for it, believe me—this is Aureax Ferri. I hope you enjoy what I consider to be my best piece of pony writing to date. I can’t say it’s better than Ordo ab Chao absolutely, as the two are inseparable, but the actual writing in itself is better, in my opinion.

Parts III and IV are done; I just have to edit them, and I’ll publish them as soon as I do. An internet cookie to whomever gets what historical anecdote this is based off of; it shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out.