Twilight Sparkle
This—this is weird. I’m not used to keeping anything like this secret. Especially not from Spike. Princess Luna made me swear, with every swear I’ve ever heard and a whole lot that I hadn’t. I never knew promises could be supplemented with magic like that. It’s a fascinating but Princess Luna made me promise not to look into it. Something about the oath-breaker’s curse.
When I asked her what it was she looked scared. She started doing a lot of dispellings. It was fascinating seeing her work. The abjuration matrices were so ancient I had only read about them. Some even involved chanting! This is only the fifth time I’ve ever seen a spell with vocal components done. It’s so amazing to see how speaking can affect the magic being cast, how words can bend the energy in a way horns and matrices can’t even begin to and--and I’m gushing again, aren’t I?
I nearly lost my dinner when I saw Chrysalis. There was a lot less blood than there should have been, I guess I have Princess Luna to thank for that. Even just thinking about that splintered spear coming out of her makes me queasy.
I—I’m a bad pony. Once I’d gotten over the sight I couldn’t help but think about it. She hurt so many ponies, she would have left Equestria as nothing but a husk with all the love sucked out of it! How could I not think about it!?
How could I?
I spent the last two years saving the world with the power of friendship and harmony and the first time killing is easier it’s all I could think about? What if we had just decided to kill Nightmare Moon? Princess Celestia would still be inconsolable and we couldn’t have survived Discord and everything else without her.
What if Nightmare Moon had decided to just kill us? Princess Luna took down Chrysalis and from the look of her it was a pretty one-sided fight. Why didn’t Nightmare Moon just kill us?
I put the best protection spells I could around Chrysalis and hid her in the basement. The library could explode and fall on top of her and she wouldn’t even feel it and if I get any more ideas it will at least take me some time to undo.
Your faith
Twilight Sparkle
Bit of a snafoo with the chapter orders yesterday so sorry to anyone who read the last two chapters and was confused it's fixed now though.
This is another one of the chapters where I couldn't think of any good reason why it should end up in Luna's diary so it's just here. There's actually going to be quite a few of these coming along. I'm toying with the idea of this quest to go get Starswirl's book being recorded by everyone except Luna.
I'm still not sure how I'm going to answer that question of Twilight's. It's definitely one that I should address because it's a gaping hole in this interpretation of Luna but everything I've come up with so far just seems really forced. Anyway it will be answered eventually I'm just not sure how yet.
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Chapter 156. Wow. Will you be continuing this past 200? From what I have heard, there is a limit on FimFic where a single story can only have 200 chapters. You could easily continue it as a second story. Diary of the Night Vol. II. Write it off as Luna running out of space in the first diary.
If I could, may I vote against? This is Diary of the Night, and let's keep it that way as much as possible.
As for the question: "Why didn’t Nightmare Moon just kill us?" - think of her goals, her motivations. Nightmare Moon wanted her night appreciated. That was her only real goal - all the rest was just means towards it, disabling obstacles that would prevent that. And how can you appreciate the night if you're dead? The little fools couldn't really hurt her (so she believed), so beyond being annoying, they were mostly harmless and somewhat amusing. No need to kill them.
Nightmare Moon wasn't inherently evil. She was insane, so fixated on her idea that no means were too evil to push it - but if she could choose without compromising her goal, she'd choose a lesser evil - least harmful way towards her goal.
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Good points, but I think it may be more complicated than this, if I may interject. Remember, NMM did try to kill Twilight & friends in the first of the obstacles she laid out for them (loosening up the cliff so that it would fall when they stood on it), and probably with the Manticore too. One could argue of course that they're virtually immune to cartoon mishaps anyway and would survive the fall (i.e. RD sustaining nothing more than a damaged wing from an avalanche), but the Manticore was willing and able to kill and eat them. Also, NMM charging at Twilight with lowered horn during their fight can be interpreted as an attempt to impale her.
I agree that NMM was insane, but she was capable of equicide.
5262989
I believe with cartoon physics the fall would end in some incapacitating injury ending the expedition early. And the manticore was angry at the thorn, note how it didn't bite Rarity's head off, just roared her mane straight :) Also, I'm pretty sure unicorns/alicorns don't use horns as blades. Horn aimed at the opponent is poised for rapid delivery of a magical blast, and short range nullifies chances to miss/dodge.
This is a very entertaining read and your take on the dynamics between the royal sisters is really well crafted. The characterizations are solid and consistent. Especially Luna, I enjoy reading her a lot, not the least because your interpretation of the night-princess matches my own. And you can write historic excerpts and action scenes that don't suffer from flatness - big plus.
You could use a proofreader to catch those switching tenses and the occasional fragment in a rewritten sentence or redundancies, but it is nowhere near as bad as to put me off; it would simply make a nicer read. The only thing I occasionally found jarring is your excessive use of Author's notes... I learned to skip them quickly as they have a tendency to ruin the mood the story has just set. Maybe not use pictures or videos though? Can't skip those without noticing the content. And it detracts from a great story.
Anyway, excuse my rambling. It's close to 4am and I just read the whole thing in one session.
Time well spent - good work!
I think Nightmare Moon's actions in canon are somewhat inconsistent with Luna's characterization in this story. Of course, I don't seem to recall the issue of what exactly she did in this "universe" being addressed directly, so it's not clear what sort of relationship she had/has with Equestria besides her sister having ruled it for the last thousand years. I feel like there's any number of details absent.
It seems like it might be possible and/or sensible to group some entries together. Especially when the diary entries are less than three hundred words a piece. I don't see what rule requires that each entry be a separate chapter and I still think would be nice if the non-diary chapters were addressed in a way (other than title) that visually differentiated them for clarity. There are a few where it isn't clear precisely who the person speaking/being spoken about is.
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It's never been confirmed on-screen but it is my impression that the Elements purge an object or person of dark and/or chaotic magic. For Luna, that meant basically stripping away the entire "Nightmare" persona and its magically-sustained hate. In Discord's case, if effectively de-powered him, with the side-effect of turning him to stone.
5264976 Not Power Rangers. Super Sentai. I have my doubts that an American team would come up with something like that. Compare and contrast Super Megaforce and Gokaiger.
There's strange stuff, crazy ideas, absurd notions, and then there's the Japanese. They currently have imagination powered trains in Ressha Sentai ToQger, which is not likely to come over to the USA.
I'm really curious to know why Twilight decides to kill Chrysalis, since that's the only way it fits with canon. Either that, or she keeps Chrysalis locked in her basement for the rest of the series.