EXTENDED AUTHOR'S NOTE FOR IE - FIFTH CHAPTER

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CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR [CH.5] OF [INJURING ETERNITY]
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This a little late whoops

Well, I finally did it. This chapter was the reason I had started the fic, and the reason I kept powering through it. The last talk between Rares and Twilight was the first thing I ever imagined of the fic. Before everything else, there was just that one scene floating around in my mind -- a series of visuals all-centered around this Future Twilight telling Rarity that it wasn't that she couldn't move on, it was that she didn't want to move on. It was my fervent desire to write-out that scene and post it that made me create a whole damn fic around it. It was this scene, and the scene afterwards that made me power through the other chapters -- particularly when I was so ready to pull-out and delete the fic halfway through chapter 3.

The park scene was actually written at the same time as Chapter 2, but it was written from Rarity's point-of-view, thus meaning I had to re-write it from Twilight's POV. Snippets of dialogue from that scene are some of the things I also had in mind before I decided to formally write IE. Surprisingly, despite this, it was still very hard for me to write. I had a lot of conflicts with it, particularly with doubting my characterisation of both Twilight and Rarity.

Back to the last scene.

If I had wanted, I could have had Twilight spend another entire day with Rarity, but the reason I had Rarity cut it short like that was because it seemed a little more real and more heart-wrenching to me -- not to mention because I had the same thing happen to me. I had someone cut short our last day together just because they didn't want want to be a crying mess during our last goodbye.

It was perfect for the story.

Originally, when I wrote the 'goodbye scene', I WAS going to end it there, with her returning to the past with this renewed sense of life and wonder, and it was all going to be so happy and beautiful -- and bland. I wanted drama, damn it! I wanted to make myself cry! I wanted that emotional roller-coaster of having a nice goodbye only to for it to ripped away and replaced by the raw emotion that yeah, it was a good okay, but it still hurt. Most of all, though, I wanted to show how much Rarity loved Twilight.

As I've mentioned before, I always get the impression that there are two sides of Rarity: a stoic, controlled and calm one and the dramatic, screeching side. As I've seen in fics, either the unicorn is completely in-control and her emotions are in-check, or she's a hysterical disaster. Both sides are Rarity, so why not have both reactions? Also, it was because I get the impression that, in most of the fanfics I've read, it's always Twilight who shows how in love she is with Rarity, while we never get Rarity's POV on the whole thing. With the 'goodbye' scene, we have that collected Rarity who is so in control, so calming, and the one who calms Twilight down. With the breakdown scene, we have the other side, the one that shows raw emotions and, importantly, who does it without knowing Twilight is there.

There's also the fact that I had written myself into a corner thanks to the ending of Chapter 2.

If, upon finally finding the correct page, there had been no message from Rarity, Twilight would have closed the notebook and smiled, maybe even would have shaken her head at the silly belief that there’d be something there. […] She’d have then gone back in peace, with no tears or anxieties. It would have been a good, heartwarming, hopeful ending for a story that would unfold if, and only if, there had been no message for Twilight in her old, worn out, purple notebook.

Unfortunately —or perhaps, fortunately— that was not the story or ending that awaited Twilight Sparkle, because, when she found the page, a letter written in purple ink was waiting for her. […]

Effectively, when Twilight Sparkle would return to her own time, two days later, she would not return in the same state she would have had she gone home two days earlier. She would come back with an utterly crushed, ravaged heart; barely even able to speak when a panicked Spike would ask what happened and why was she crying and why hadn’t she listened to him.

There. I had said earlier that Twilight would come back in tears, and I wasn't going to go back on my word. I *could* have edited it (as I've been editing some minor sections of previous chapters [those who have read from CH.1 will notice the disappearance of Rarity's voice in Twilight's head]), but I liked the ending of Ch. 2 too much.

In any case, there's still the epilogue left. I'm still in the middle of exams, so it might not be posted soon, but I'll try my best.

Anyway, yes, thanks again for reading!