Ponyfic Roundup 515: Spotlight on Of the Night

Read it Later story count: 94 (+2)

Words read this week: 43,101

It's about time I had another Spotlight edition in these parts, so here you go! This one is fairly short for a Spotlight, but without giving too much away I can tell you that the next such edition – at least it things go according to plan – will be if a significantly longer tale. But to return to today's fic:

Of the Night by TheBrianJ
Night Glider and Other
G4; Slice of Life; 43k words; Jan–Oct 2016; Everyone

One year ago, Night Glider was exiled from Modus. Now, it’s time to go home.

This story is set just after the end of Starlight's cult in Our Town, and we quickly discover that Night Glider arrived there because she'd left her original home of Modus in quite a hurry. Exiled, in fact, as the shortdesc says. We're not told why all at once – the mystery is perhaps dragged on a little too long, as is the other “mystery” of just why Nighty was unpopular even before her exile. I'd worked it out by chapter two, so I expect others will also. Still, there are some appealing characters here, notably Night Glider's friend Dusty and a highly appropriate canon character deliberately left untagged by the author. It's a decent enough read; it just might have been better with a lower word count and snappier pacing. ★★★

As this is a Spotlight, spoilers will crowd in on you from all sides from here on in.

Let's start off with what I called the “mystery” of Night Glider's origins. It's actually pretty obvious she's from a bat pony town, right from when she's clearly not relying on sight to navigate in the forest. Besides, what other kind of pony would go on a hunt? As such, the big revelation when her parents' appearance is first described does fall rather flat. I do like the unsettling differentness of Modus, and the hints that it still resents what happened to Princess Luna suggest there might well be another tale to be told about that. I still don't quite know why the place is called Modus, though.

Night Glider herself is quite an appealing character here, unsure of herself but self-reliant, friendly but guarded, resourceful but prone to lashing out. The scene where she rescues the filly Olive Branch from quarray eels shows that she really is not a coward at all. She's still recovering somewhat from her year of brainwashing, which is presumably why she takes the entire story to realise that her place is with her new friends – especially Double Diamond. I enjoyed that the clear hints of attraction between those two were kept subtle and the author didn't fall into the trap some do and end up writing a shipfic with an adventure story tacked on the side.

The nightmare scene successfully misdirected me for quite some time. I really did think that Nighty had received a truly horrific experience when finally allowed briefly into Modus, and I'm glad the mayor didn't suddenly turn out to be a real softie in reality. I quite liked that he did not rescind her exile at the end of the fic – though just perhaps he's sharp enough to have realised that Night Glider didn't really want to return by that time, and so he could keep the peace in his town without having to admit that he was wrong.

Princess Luna's part in the story is relatively small but very important, in that after she tells Night Glider that she's dreaming, she does the “line of doors” thing as we saw in the show. The touch that Nighty can hear what's beyond them is interesting and different, but I'm not altogether sure I can quite believe in it given the magical nature of the doors and of Luna. Still, I am pleased that the Princess is true to her character and doesn't simply tell Night Glider what to do or what to think. I suspect Luna will be visiting Modus soon, and perhaps with a few home truths for them.

There's a quiet but persistent current of violence in the story. Most obviously, there's the hunt that went so horribly wrong. We never really get an explanation for the clearly unexpected appearance of multiple manticores, but of course simply being a bad look-out is not – officially, at least – what caused Night Glider's exile. The crime she's convicted of is being a coward, because she dashed back to Modus to try to get help rather than stay and fight. Fair enough for a militaristic society I suppose, but arguable – unless, of course, you just want an excuse to get rid of this pony who doesn't fit in.

The griffon raiders are also unexplained, but perhaps that dispute began with rivalry over the animals the two species were hunting. At any rate, it gives a plausible reason for Modus to be fortified and guarded, even if – once again – it's pretty clear that what they really want is for outsiders to stay away. Also on the violence front, albeit in Night Glider's nightmare, there's the fight with Onyx Shade that serves to illustrate just how much Nighty's mere presence in Modus is resented by some of the other townspeople.

Night Glider's parents are cold and hard in the dream, but during her real visit they're shown as more reasonable, if a little bit disinclined to question the established order. I like that she invites them to visit sometime, and convinces the mayor to let her write. Even so, Dusty has become almost a replacement in some ways, more of a grandfather figure to Night Glider than a friend. He's by far the most sympathetic and appealing OC in the story, and I suspect he has a few stories to tell himself of his time in Palmacolta.

So, as I said in my one-paragraph review above, Of the Night is a pleasant and smooth enough read. It's written fairly unobtrusively, with neither great blooms of gorgeous prose nor jarring clunking passages. I really wish the twin mysteries hadn't been dragged out so much longer than was necessary, since a couple of times I found myself thinking, “Oh, get on with it!” We don't learn all that much about bat pony culture beyond “doesn't like outsiders”, the author seeming as guarded as the inhabitants of Modus about that.

There is of course one final irony. Night Glider is despised by many of the bat ponies for being different, not truly one of their kind. Yet her home town is itself, lacking warmth or welcome for outsiders, very much out of place in Equestria itself.

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Next time, it'll be the penultimate selection of fics that won medals in the Thousand Words Contest III. Just five of these, but I'm hoping abundant quality will make up for the lack of quantity. Here's the slate for PR 516:

Senescence by Aquaman
House of Grass by Cold in Gardez
Flutter's Eye by Strawberry Sunrise
Safe Sex, Trixie-Style by Dubs Rewatcher
Narrative Cage by gloamish