It appears that I wrote the essay for this fic offline, and so I present it here in its full lack of glory. I'd honestly suggest that you read it only after finishing the story itself.

Orhan Pamuk mentions in one of his interviews how he long wished to write a book starting with the sentence I read a book one day and my whole life was changed; this was how The New Life started, and in an opposite sense this is how this story started: I woke up at four in the morning and I had in my head a sentence with such beauty that I immediately wished to write a story with it as its last:

“I will,” she said, and pulled down the sky.

The second chapter was written entirely before the first; the end was written before the start. I'm still unsure whether I ought to continue the story – I intended to continue Pinkie Pie Turns Into Rainbow Dash's Pubic Hair, for instance, but then I found that its tragic ending suited it far better as it was - but for now I am very happy with the fact that I actually managed to write two-thousand-and-a-half words in the space of four hours.

Now, you might ask: why talk about word count?

Well, because I think everything I've written is terrible, which is the reason I would like the reader to decide before blowing my own trumpet. God knows the last thing I want to be a pedant with nothing to exhibit.

At the very least I can say that it isn't that fic which is a series of prolonged purple ramblings vaguely related to immortality.

“This morning?” one might also ask, “Didn't you say you were writing something the day before?”

Well, I ask: have you read that fic with Pinkie Pie and Gilda and aliens that I wrote?

Don't.

The fic that I was writing was written in that pathetic, frantic style, running about and trying to find something interesting, trying in vain to extract some tiny bits of laughter from the presumably stone-faced audience. It was, in other words, somewhat artificial; it did not flow like it ought to have. Its prose was built from a desire to write, rather than ability; it is, in other words, corrupt schon in ihrem ersten Keim.

I'm still going to finish it eventually, of course. It's an interesting idea and lets me make two jokes I'd been looking forward to making.

The prayer was originally going to include the lines “my meat for food, my hooves for glue, my skin for clothes, my fat for soap,” but that's a bit too morbid.

As a side-note, I used Chancellor Puddinghead as the Princess's placeholder name; it might be even better to read the story as if it was Puddinghead that started the winter, depending on your disposition.

24th August 2012
Fougères, Ille-et-Villaine, Bretagne, France

Mended 24th August 2012
Mellé, Ille-et-Villaine, Bretagne, France

In retrospect, the sentence should have been the opening line. The fic, however, is fossilised and l'auteur est mort.

In related news, NorsePony suggested that I continue and advised me to restructure the entire fic. I did so - a perhaps unprecedented step in my collaboration with other people. The following is its original form, with all of its My Little Stashie-inspired dialogue:

        “How far?” he said. Then he looked up into the faraway sky and its pinprick of a sun and coughed a bit, pulling his greatcoat tighter around him. “I apologise; that's a stupid question. How long?”

        She looked at him and shook her head gently. “Six months. Then not even the greatest earth ponies will have the power to raise the grass from the ground. So many think it is a phase, that it will pass. It will ravage us, and half of us will not forsee the apocalypse.”

        “You don't say, Twinkle?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Talk like somepony your age. For the simple-minded among us.”

        She huffed indignantly. “You're hardly very simple-minded, Professor.”

        “Oh, but of course I am. How else,” he said, walking to the edge of the cliff and knocking a pebble off; he looked over for quite a while before he saw it break through a sheet of ice and grinned with satisfaction. It hadn't made a sound; the echo corridor was nothing if not efficient. “How else would I take such joy in breaking ice with pebbles that take a minute to fall?”

        She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I'll talk normal.”

        “Adjectives and adverbs are distinct in Modern Standard Equestrian, dear. You're not sixty; you're not six either. I'm sure you've mastered the distinction.”

        “Go buck yourself off that cliff with a five-foot sledgehammer, you glittering buzzard.” She said it with no trace of malice whatsoever and a slight smile on her face.

        He grinned, consciously stepping away from the edge. “That's better. Physically impossible, but better.”

        She stepped back as well. “A lot like what we're trying to do, huh?”

        “Fine conversation-railer. Very fine. I give you a seven out of ten.”

        She sighed. “This is serious. We're all going to die in six months, you understand? Eight, if we're lucky.”

        He returned a raised eyebrow. “Did you not say 'seven' just to avoid repeating me?” The warning look in her eyes gave him pause; he cleared his throat and looked back into the sky. “Fine. How do you intend to get it back down?”

        She plodded over to a nearby rock and sat herself down, putting her hooves together as she balanced on her backside.“That's the thing. A unicorn could do it.”

        He followed her, bowing his head; brown fur filled her vision. “Do you see a horn on my head, dear?”

        She gave him the most withering stare she could. “I most certainly do. Have you seen your wife lately?”

        He recoiled as if struck, wincing in feigned agony. “Ooh. You've been taking your symbology lessons. I really did open myself up for that one, didn't I?”

        She shook her head and played along. “You did. Along with every other one. Take care not to drown.”

        “All right, all right,” he said, settling down in the snow in front of her, “I surrender. What exactly would you say appears to be the problem here, then? I take it for granted that you're a unicorn.” He paused for about a second. “I consider myself a tolerant stallion, though. If you're actually tribe-queer, I could procure some prosthetic wings. Maybe some tail extensions, if you're more on the earth pony si—”

        She stuffed her pink hoof into his mouth. “It would take the strength of a thousand unicorns.”

        He spat the hoof out, making quite a show of cleaning his mouth. “I take it that we've got a flying arrow paradox, here?”

        “Yes. Even if we could gather a thousand unicorns—”

        “—even if we could gather a thousand unicorns, they would be far too busy pedantically explaining things anypony who's spent five minutes in a philosophy class for the extra credits would know about to actually do anything about it?”

        She glared at him. “Do you really need to be such a birchstick?”

        “If I wasn't, you wouldn't try this hard. I understand the problem: the sky's too far. I understand the solution: unicorn magic. I understand the complication: unicorn magic is utter rubbish.” He chuckled to himself. “Unreliable, subtle as a bag of rocks, steeped in unnecessary ritual—but that's besides the point. What, do you propose we do about it, then?”

        “Do you know why the sky is receding, Professor?”

        “Of course I do; it's a natural phenomenon. I suppose you're going to tell me, though? Explain it for an invisible audience?”

        She stomped a forehoof. “This is important, Professor. When Commander Hurricane ran Princess Platinum through five years ago during the First Internecine War, what did Platinum say as she laid dying, her horn shining?”
        He sighed. “'May the world forever be drawn from its sky, may the dawn forever flee from the earth.' The luckiest weather forecast ever made. What does that have to do with our current predicament? You don't seriously mean to say that he caused this, do you?”

        She bit her lip. “I had an idea.”

        “Is it breathtakingly morbid?”

        “Yes.”

        “Well, go right ahead.”

        Her voice took on a bit of annoyance. “You're not even going to try to guess?”

        He stuck a hoof up. “First guess: pony sacrifice.” He pulled up another. “Second guess: various things too inappropriate to so much as mention to a filly your age. Do I get a third? I'm afraid I'm not very good at balancing on one hoof.”

        She snorted, partially in disgust. “You only needed the first.”

        “Shame. I always wondered what to do with those left-over marital aids.”

        She ignored him, standing up. “I chose to meet you in this place for a reason, Professor.”

        “Oh, heavens,” he said, his eyes widening in mock horror as he reared his forehoof back up against his chin. “Don't tell me you've given me the honour of saving the world with my death. I couldn't possibly accept. I'm not worthy; I'm not even a virgin.”

        “I met you here because it'd be better than a letter.”

        His hoof fell back into the snow.

        “No.”

        The tone was harder than any other she'd ever heard before; she looked at him incredulously, the sudden drop making her train of thought stumble. “What do you mean, 'no'?”

        “Pony sacrifice does not work, Twinkle. I thought you were joking; I'm sorry that I thought of you as more intelligent than you've shown yourself to be. It's as simple as that, and I am not going to let you pursue that line of thought any more than I'm going to let you dilute your saliva in a cup and market it as an antientropic compound.”

        She considered the thought for a moment before shaking her head furiously, walking to the side. “It worked for Platinum, and I don't think he even intended it. It will work for me.”

        He snorted derisively, following her path with the utmost care. “Platinum was an astoundingly powerful pony in her own right. If she had not been physically interrupted, she could have whatever she did would have worked regardless of her physical state.”

        “You know what ponies are made of, don't you?”

        He grimaced in return. “Of course I know what ponies are made of. Marshmallows and sunshine.”

        She moved slowly towards the cliff. “Our bodily structures can't support themselves without magic. You know that. Our bones aren't built to bend the way they do. Earth ponies wouldn't even be able to live without it; their lean muscles are so dense that they collapse into themselves. Pegasi can't fly without it. We're reservoirs of magic, Professor, generating it in our youth and losing it to senescence.”

        Without any sort of spectacle, he simply walked in front of her. “What does any of this have to do with you inviting me over here to give me an excuse to give you a good whacking and send you off to the psychology department?”

        “I could release that magic, Professor.” She tried to side-step him; he moved to counter. “Every instant of power I would ever have felt, gone in a single, rapturous instant. Used in a single display of power.”

        “'Single, rapturous instant'? I'm surprised that you haven't appeared in the newspapers yet. 'Promising student Dawnbright Twinkle dies in tragic autoerotic asphyxiation incident! Faculty in disarray; personal tutor unsurprised, claims history of deviance.' As much as I hate to interrupt your adolescent fantasy, Twinkle, there is no quick fix to this situation. Magic doesn't work that way.”

        “It shouldn't work that way, but it does. You know that. You know I'd change it if I could. I'd make it work on friendship and love and harmony.” She sighed. “But it does, and I might as well make use of it. Or else there soon won't be any magic left.”

        “You—”

        “You can't prove me wrong, can you? You know I'm right, but you can't detach yourself from me and face the facts. I'm the only one who can do this.”

        His tone wavered a bit. “Pulling the sky would require so much power, so much concentration—”

        The smile she gave him chittered as she attempted to walk around him; the mountain was especially cold that day, but there wasn't any need for jackets where she was going. “My special talent is power.”

        He gritted his teeth, standing again in her path. “Your special talent is politics. I have been nice up to this point. If you do not turn around this instant, I will physically interrupt you—I will beat you to within an inch of your life. Don't you move an inch towards the precipice.”

        “Politics. Social power. Focused power. Willpower.” With a flash, she enveloped the Professor in a thick pink glow; he struggled, his hooves prodding around for the spell's nexus as she stepped around him. “It's all the same.”

        “How dare you?” he said, and realised that if he got free, the resonance from his escape would push her over the edge. “What makes you think you have the right? How dare you bring me here to make me witness the death of my most promising student, you miserable, suicidal idiot?” His voice cracked on the last word, and he took a deep breath.

        “I wanted you to know that I was gone so you wouldn't look for me. I wanted to say any number of things to you. I wanted to know what you thought. I've always respected you, Professor, and I knew you'd argue against it; I knew I was right as soon as you stopped arguing rationally.”

        The Professor looked down at his hooves; he did so for a while, as Twinkle waited for a response. The voice that returned came quietly, almost shamefully; she'd never heard anything so sentimental coming from his mouth.

        “Promise me you won't die.”

        “That's the whole point of this little exercise, Professor. I can't lie to you. You always were one for facts.” She gave him a slight smile as she stepped back; the ground went from under her and she began to fall, letting go of her holding spell and starting a new one entirely. “Goodbye.”        

        He looked up as he fell onto the snow, and his eyes met hers for half a second.

        She'd never seen tears from him, either.

        Right before she fell into the echo corridor, a faint voice barely reached her ears against the torrent of wind. “At least promise me, you—!”

        The voice was lost.

        She began to pray, her horn shining; she was at peace as her speech echoed about her.

        “Let the sun rise as it was before.
        Let the moon shine in the pitch sky.
        As I go, let my soul rend itself from my body.
        May my children use my bones for tools.
        Let them live a life greater than mine,
        built on my ashes
        rested on my husk.
        Let them build their warm cities around me,
        let them remember the past only in tragedies.
        Give my soul eternal rest
        and let my body live as my children
        so that I shall not die
        but live forever and ever
        in the kingdom of the heavens.
        Amen.”

        She closed her eyes.

        And then she opened them in realisation, a metre from the ground.

        “I promise,” she said, and pulled down the sky.

        Her neck broke against the rocks and it turned a brilliant white.