Chapter 46: Isolation
At the Inn of the Prancing Pony
Chapter 46: Isolation
In her throne room in Canterlot, Celestia, Princess of Equestria, sat in her throne. Her eyes were closed as her spirit roamed through the land.
Despite her final conversation with Ellen (and Mary Jo by proxy), she had still felt the presence of one last player in Equestria—probably Brian, playing a solo game. But eventually even he got bored.
There...yes, that’s it! Equestria is finally—
Celestia opened her eyes.
Equestria was gone.
She was floating in space, with no sign of throne, palace, Canterlot, ponies...anything. To her left was her sun. To her right was the moon, stained with the mark of the Nightmare. She turned slowly around to face the only other inhabitant of her entire universe: the stone statue of Discord.
“You!” she cried. “You were responsible all along, weren’t you? You were the one that lured that mad human here, who started this whole madness and for what? Revenge?”
“I told you that you were an usurper,” His oily voice echoed in her brain. “And that the fate of all usurpers was revolution. The players were my successors as rulers of Equestria. I gave the entire planet to them, to do with as they wished. And that sale was non-transferrable!”
“Discord!”
“Too bad you kicked them all out. With no way to contact them, there’s no way to bring your world back. If I can’t have this stupid world, then no one can.”
And then the voice of the statue stilled in Celestia’s mind, and for the first time in her life, she was truly and utterly alone.
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Whups.
Wow. I was expecting there to still be a twist, but nothing like that! As revenge goes, that's both pretty clever and pretty horrible.
I wonder if Celestia and Nightmare Moon could work the spell in reverse between them? If Hope Springs still counts as a seperate pony, they'd have the three they need, which Discord mightn't have taken into account.
If you're answering questions about minor details after everything is wrapped up, I'm still wondering what's the deal with cutie marks - adventurers have them, the Sparkles and royal family all have them, but commoners don't. Is it a function of how much attention a PH has given a pony?
I've also been wondering about the way everyone who interacted with Celestia/Hope Springs started caring more about her opinion than they could really justify to themselves - it even got noticed by the characters themselves a lot, so I assume there's something to it.
I guess I'm still waiting to see the true ending.
Wow, that ending sure was sudden. Everything built up and built up, and then Celestia reaches critical mass and ties up everything off-camera. Yeah the dungeon crawl was over, but there was still the dragons and the politics to deal with. Still, it was a wild ride, and I'm interested to see where things end up (since I don't believe for a second it'll really end with Equestria vanished forever).
Metafictionally, I can't help but wonder if partway through the story (say, around the time that the players started their game) Luna forgot about the whole "therapy" aspect of the story and just got carried away with imagining Celestia outsmarting everybody in amusing ways.
5465179
Pretty much. If they have a character sheet, either as a player character, or as an NPC, then they get a cutie mark.
Me: The "caring issue" is a matter of charisma: Celestia has loads of it. If she ever took it in her head to go evil, I'm pretty sure she could talk anybody she wanted into killing themselves. How else do you think somebody could rule for a thousand years without ever being overthrown? The only reason Chrysalis did as well as she did is because she's the first opponent of Celestia since Sombra who's proven immune to her charm.
Interesting twist there. So, what's the deal with Celestia being an "usurper" anyway? Or is Discord messing with her head? I kind of assumed that what Discord (Cordis) did simply transferred his powers to the others somehow. Can/could Celestia create ponies out of thin air too?
If M.J. and Ellen are "Gods" by Equestria standards, then is such a linkage really broken? Anyway for them to get sucked across the other way? What's to prevent Howard or them from reenacting whatever spell that was anyway? If Discord handed them his powers, so to speak, is anything impossible?
5465775
Yeah, me too. A whole bunch of loose ends just popped into existence.
P.S.
Ok, Celestia, time to make up a game about Earth... At least you have enough information and ponies that, if it worked, you'd be able to gain control of M.J. and Ellen at least. I wonder how these links work anyway...'
Very confusing how this whole world thing works. Also unclear what Celestia and Luna's roles are in it and how they actually came into being.
5466094
McPoodle: The rightful king of the unicorns must be a member of the royal family. The rightful president of the earth ponies must be an earth pony elected by a majority of the tribes. And the rightful commander of the pegasi must have been raised on the shields of his troops in battle.
Celestia and Luna meet none of these conditions. They replaced the three old political institutions with one new one: the Diarchy. But in the eyes of the old loyalists of the three tribes, they are usurpers. In the same way, there are Jacobites running around on earth convinced that Queen Elizabeth II is an usurper, since only a descendant of James II could possibly be a rightful king of Great Britain.
Now Discord, being a god, cheated. He was born as a unicorn to the unicorn queen in a direct parody of Alien, making him technically a member of the unicorn royal family. (This being Equestria and Discord, the poor queen actually survived the experience, although her mind never recovered.) He turned himself into an earth pony and got Himself unanimously elected president by a populace who then re-wrote their constitution to make Him president for life. And He was raised on the shields of His (mesmerized) pegasi army of conquest. In His own mind, that makes Him the rightful ruler of Equestria...for all time.
I see.
Oh dear. Caught on a technicality. Now, how will Celestia get out of this, how long will it take, and what will the ponies do in the meantime?
Not sure where Luna is going with this...
Dangit Discord x2!
Well that was definitely not the victory that Celestia was looking for.
5492860
Ha ha, that's awesome! I'm amazed you remembered that little comment from so long ago to go back and reply to it for this.
With that in mind, things do seem to be kind of lining up well for the last chapter title to be "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars"...
5517004 Hell, I'm looking at that comment and getting confused. Maybe I meant amusing instead of assuming?