If you’re looking for some comedy with a philosophical twist, don’t wait to read today’s story.

Waiting For Celestia
[Comedy] [Slice of Life] • 6,056 words

After Celestia takes her flying chariot to Ponyville to have an important talk with the new Princess Twilight Sparkle, she teleports back to Canterlot … leaving her charioteers behind. Unsure what else to do in the wake of this improbable, nay, highly unusual, nay, nay, impossible event, the two pegasi have a conversation that leads them to some startling revelations.

FROM THE CURATORS: Appearances can be deceiving with fanfiction — and in this case, there were pleasant surprises behind the façade of the title.  “I’ve never actually seen Waiting for Godot, but this isn’t really a crossover with it, so no worries on that front,” Chris said.  “What it is is a story that moves from absurd comedy to crisis-of-faith in barely 6000 words, and is both funny and thoughtful where it needs to be.”  Present Perfect agreed, adding: “I’m very glad that the author decided to invoke Godot just long enough to subvert it, then put in some actual plot.”

Subverting its source material was a point in Waiting For Celestia’s favor, but it didn’t stop there — and one of the factors in its feature was how memorably it made the tale its own. “It’s been more than a year since I last saw this story, but all its scenes stuck in my notoriously sieve-like brain,” AugieDog said.  Even its send-up of the titular absurdist play was a joy to read: “The image of how the guards communicated while guarding the chariot was, alone, enough to get me liking this story,” Horizon said.

But ultimately, the story’s stand-out feature was the way it first balanced, then merged, the comedy and philosophy, which at first seemed destined for an ungainly collision. “Not only was I engaged all the way through, but I found the ending surprisingly impactful,” JohnPerry said.  “The earlier discussion on the omniscience of Celestia came back in a big way, such that it turned the absurdist nature of the set-up into a surprisingly grounded tale.”  That light touch with philosophy was praised by several curators. “Waiting For Celestia doesn’t try to tackle something as weighty as ‘what does it mean to be seen as deific by those who serve you’ in its entirety, but instead confined itself to what that meant for two ponies, for one night,” Chris said.  “Sometimes, keeping things small is the right way to go.”

Read on for our author interview, in which Bronetheus discusses altruistic struggles, pony charity, and mythic trees.
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