Chapter 31
“No,” Celestia whispered. “Not now, not yet...”
“Orders, your highness?” Shining Armor asked.
“Wreck the city!” Reiziger said to the thestral and the mythicorn. “Bring it all down!” They swooped down toward the bustling metropolis below.
“Let's go!” cried Twilight, fluttering up, horn ablaze with magic. “We're not afraid of you! Princess Celestia, you-”
“Evacuate.”
Twilight's mouth dropped open. “What?”
“Luna, the teleport projector spell,” said Celestia. “Go through the city and fire it. Get everypony out of here!”
“Where?”
“Ha ha ha!” cried Reiziger, blurring in a blackened smear right towards them. Celestia flew up and caught him as he streaked, catching up his antlers in her horn. Her wings whirled as she spun, once, twice, three times and she flung him out and down into the city.
“The Crystal Empire!” Celestia answered finally. “Teleport everypony there! And when you're done, go to Ponyville and do the same! Twilight, you assist her!”
“But princess!”
“That is a royal order, Twilight Sparkle!” With that Celestia tucked in her wings and dove, hurtling down toward the city where Reiziger had crawled from his crater and now streaked right up at her. They met in a tremendous red and golden clash, the power shattering windows, knocking down badly-supported towers, sending both of them now out into the sky.
Twilight turned to Luna. “I-”
“We must do as she requested, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Hurry!” Luna flapped her wings and soared off of the balcony. Soon she swept over the city, firing out bursts of silver magic. When they hit the crowded clumps of ponies, ponies who now screamed and ran and panicked, those grouped ponies vanished in great sparkling bursts. Twilight growled in anger, but complied.
“Shiny,” she said o'er her shoulder, “get Pinkie and Fluttershy out of here!”
“Got it!” he replied, already slinging Pinkie on his back. “Hold on to me,” he said to Fluttershy. With a final glance at Twilight, she complied, and Shining Armor took a step and vanished. Sighing, Twilight flapped off of the balcony and swooped down to the city far below.
With another crash of red and gold Celestia and Reiziger crossed horn and antlers. He grinned at her, manic in his glee. “So weak,” he muttered, shoving hard against her, “so weak, even you, the strongest of all! Ponies truly are a pathetic race.”
Celestia merely growled and bathed him in golden, burning solar light. Reiziger, however, shrugged it off and lunged, white teeth snapping razor sharp. Celestia reared back but not in time for now the monster's teeth were on her side and she cried out as they found purchase sinking deep into her alabaster flank. In that moment, the sun above turned red. Only for an instant- only for a moment's blinking eye- but still for just that moment all the world was bathed in crimson light. Wrenching free Celestia fired yet another blast of magic, but Reiziger caught it on his antlers and he bounced it harmlessly away.
“Again and again you try, again and again you fail! Have you not realized that I am beyond you now, pathetic pony goddess?” He bullrushed her and caught her up within his antlers, swinging her around with massive force. Celestia flew out and smashed against a nearby mountainside, Reiziger wound up the power in his antlers and he fired-
Twilight Sparkle, whirling when she heard the sound of magic, gaped in horror as a whole entire mountain was destroyed, vaporized in burst of dust and ash. “Got to... got to... got to focus,” she muttered, flying low toward a huddled, shivering cluster of Canterlot ponies. They were backed against a crumbled tower, scared out of their minds. “I'm here!” she cried. “Hold still, everypony, I'll teleport you away!”
“What about our homes?” a unicorn asked desperately.
“I...”
“The dark lord is finally taking everything!”
“No! Listen, we'll... we'll...” Twilight felt like crying, “we'll do something, I promise we will! For now, hold still!” They stopped their shivering. Twilight fired out a purple burst of magic; it hit them all, and with a blast of sparkles they all disappeared. Twilight breathed out, turned, searched with magic pings for more survivors as the city rocked and crumbled all around her-
With a crash the mythicorn came landing near her. The thestral then wheeled overhead. Twilight gasped and felt despair, for all reports were true: the thestral did indeed have mane and tail of rainbow stripe, while all the mythicorn's unblackened hair was violet hued. Despair- despair! It blossomed in her chest, and she, who had such hope, who had so often thought that all the love and friendship of the Elements of Harmony would finally prevail- the poison, the cancer of despair was in her now.
“R-Rarity... Rarity!” she cried up at the mythicorn. “Rarity! Rainbow Dash! I know you're both in there, somewhere! You have... you have to fight! We'll help you, please, please!”
The mythicorn now paused. Its graceful black head tilted to the side, empty blue eyes pausing for a moment to regard the little pony princess standing just before it. It blinked those empty eyes, hissed perhaps a silent breath. Twilight Sparkle started to smile- but then the mythicorn reared back its head and charged its horn. Twilight dodged in time to miss its blast of battle magic. The thestral whipped its wings and flung a twister at the city- this touched down and started shattering and sinking homes throughout the upper levels. The whole city was shaking, quaking with the fights outside and in. Twilight felt a spike of wrath. Eyes filled up with sparks, she snarled and blasted battle magic at the ponies who had been her friends and nearly vaporized them in her fury. In that moment all she heard was Fëanor: The Herd Lord is like no enemy you have faced. He does not kidnap princesses, he does not steal gems or harvest love. He wages war. Can you withstand him?
“No, no!” cried Twilight. She flapped and flung herself into the midst of those black ponies. She crossed horns with the mythicorn and knocked her back, then fired battle magic that sent that black pony reeling. The thestral blasted her with lightning but Twilight turned and she blocked it and she sent up lightning purple lightning of her own that snarled and snared the thestral til it howled. “Do you think you can beat me?” Twilight cried, cycling her wings, eyes aglow, suddenly a terrible thing. “Do you think I'll let you beat me?”
“Princess Twilight Sparkle!”
Eyes ablaze, Twilight turned round to see Luna approaching. The thestral and the mythicorn took that chance to attack, but Luna raised a silver shield to block their blows. “I can handle this!” cried Twilight.
“There is no more handling to be done,” said Luna. “The city is empty. We must retreat!”
“No! No no no no no no NO!” Twilight stomped her hoof. “I'm tired of running! I'm tired of retreating and settling for stalemates! We fight here!”
“No we do not, Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Luna sharply said. “We retreat to a more stable posit-”
“More stable? More stable?! This is Canterlot!” Twilight screamed at Luna, eyes wide open, trailing tears. “This is our city! If we don't fight- if we don't hold it here- what good are we?”
The city quaked and rocked and shook. Towers crumbled. Streets cracked, showing open air for half a mile down. Shops and homes and alleyways were ground to dust, lives and livelihoods that stood for centuries were pounded into rubble. The thestral and the mythicorn had turned by now and kept on smashing up the city, throwing down all buildings they could reach. Far overhead, Reiziger sent Celestia careening through the Palace of the Sun, smashing up its tallest tower.
“We can't leave!” cried Twilight. “We can't, we can't-”
Luna's hoof snapped out and cracked Twilight upon her cheek. “Princess Twilight Sparkle,” Luna snarled, “thou mayst be babied by my sister, but I shalt not tolerate thy insubordination. Stay if thou wishest- but stay and perish. I'll have no part in thy delusions.” Luna's horn now twinkled as she dropped her shield. She flapped into the air, wheeled once then twice, and flew away.
Twilight looked upon the city yet again, this city she had known from infancy, this city that, though she now lived in Ponyville, would always feel to her like home. There, if she squinted, she saw the small park where she and Spike had played while Shining Armor watched. Up on the near-highest level she saw Donut Joe's beloved shop. She could sniff and smell, through all the dust, the sweat and fresh-baked bread and hustle of the city that she'd so long grown to love.
But the ground cracked up beneath her, and she felt a blackness in her chest. “Agh!!” she roared, but flapped her wings and rose into the air. She pumped those wings as hard as she could manage, soaring up into the sky, following with sadness in old Luna's wake.
In the Palace of the Sun the throne room had been ruined. Celestia panted, gasped, streaked with dust and soot, aurora mane and tail now shining shades of red and orange. She tried to stand- but Reiziger put down a blackened hoof upon her back, pinning her into the crater where she'd landed. “Now, my dear, dear goddess,” he said, smiling, “any last requests? Let us hear the Sun's epitaph.”
Celestia glared at him with all her hate. He merely smiled. But she fidgeted- she twitched- and then she vanished. She appeared again miles away up in the sky. Pumping her white wings she wheeled about, steadying herself, and then began to fly away, heading for the north.
“Hmph,” huffed Reiziger. “Pathetic.” He raised his head. Crimson fire blazed upon his antlers, and he rose off of the ground. Dirt and dust and chunks of rock and marble stone began to rise up with him. Then he sharply dropped and slammed into the throne room floor, shaking the whole city like an earthquake or the world's end.
Twilight was now several miles away. Hearing the great crash, she turned and hovered, watching from afar. The city shook. A few long minutes passed, and then the city shook again.
This isn't real, she thought.
The city shook once more.
This is just a bad dream. I'm going to wake up now, and I'm going to be in my bed in the library in Ponyville, and all of this will be a nightmare.
The city shook a third time. Now the highest towers tumbled down. Now the lowest level sank at a strong angle from the higher portions of the city.
It's just a dream!
The city shook again- and broke. With a horrible, awful, terrible CRACK, Canterlot came unstuck from the mountainside. The city tumbled downward in a horrifying crash, towers, levels, roads and houses smashing to the ground below and raising up a cloud of dust for miles everywhere.
“No!” cried Twilight, weeping openly. “No!” But she could not stop it. Crying, weeping, bawling, she wheeled about and flew away, joining now Celestia and Luna in their swift retreat.
Yes, run! Run! Run to the ends of the Earth, for all the good it will do you! Ahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
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Good God... Canterlot... not just fallen but utterly destroyed? The heart and soul of Equestrian civilisation for a thousand years... gone in a few scant minutes. That's it, then. Equestria is lost. There's no hope. Even if by some miracle Rezeiger is defeated and cast out or destroyed then the nation of Equestria as it was is no more. Two major cities utterly destroyed, one ruined and tainted, Ponies turning against their allies and losing faith in their immortal rulers and now the huddled remnants retreat to the Crystal Empire, a nation that is still recovering from a thousand year curse.
Whatever comes of this I don't think it will be anything like the old Equestria. After this disaster the credibility of the Princesses is shattered. This is worse than the Nightmare Moon Incident of '01. I don't know what will come out of the ashes of this, but I'd be shocked if Celestia and Luna held any power.
5970734 Wasn't the whole thing built in living memory? It was a bunch of tents in the flashback in Family Appreciation Day.
I wish there was a block author feature that kept their stories from appearing. Every time I see this story in some sidebar I get pissed off. I wish it did not exist
5970854 sucks to be you then
*sigh*
I hate to say what follows. I really, really do, because Dangerous Business is still probably my favourite pony fanfic. But I feel obliged as reader to have to say it.
I think I am beginning to get a bit tired of this endless string of defeats now, too, myself. There is only so far you can push the line of defeat after defeat, that, sorry Jetfire, but I think you more than passed it with this chapter. Which is a shame, because up until the end of the battle in Manehatten this was really good. You'd got the balance between making the villain a threat without being too competant and too invulnerable nearly perfectly. But since it's deteriorated to the point that it's very quickly becoming no longer entertaining to read, because it's one series of (irrecoverable) losses after another. And you really are starting to write yourself into a corner about turning this around with any credibility.
At this point, you've basically destroyed - aside from REALLY abusing the deus ex machina of the Elements of Harmony or something to fix everything after the dust settles - any chance of a non-bleak ending, because even if they ponies win, you've erased most of the major cities and basically crushed pony civilisation. (And saying "it's only cities, is doesn't matter" well, no, it really does, because of all the infrastructure destroyed - infrastructure and industry an industriaised society (which Equestria IS) needs to survive. Destruction of all major urbanised areas was quite literally the end of many civilisations in history.) You've basically hitting the Mass Effect 3 level of "actually, it doesn't matter which ending you choose, billions of people will die because the galaxy can't recover the infrastructure damage fast enough to stop everyone outside the core worlds starving to death or worse." This has stopped being enjoyably LotR-flavoured pony and become something else, which is just not nearly as good.
(Actually, I'm starting to see more of Korra season one in this and I absolutely HATED the villain in that as being arguably the most risibly, ineptly, immesion-breaking, self-gratifyingly, pulling-unearned-success-out-of-his-arse written villain I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing, compunded by the show not even addressing the fact that at the end, he no longer mattered, since the Equalists had already won and were in control of everything.)
I am really, REALLY sorry to have to say it, because I wanted to like this so badly... But this just is not up to the standard of Dangerous Journey now. It's gone from being "oh great, it's updated, HUZZAH!" to "well, I supposed I ought to read it, really."
I am not quite ready to give up yet, but it will have to take something stupendous to turn this around for me at this point.
5970854 If you don't like stories like this, then I have one piece of advice for you: DON'T read them!!!
That's the simplest answer.
Don't worry about a "Block authors" button; just Don't. Read. The. Story. And leave them to those of us who actually do like them, and enjoy reading them!
Honestly, I really don't know who's the worst about this kind of griping and story put-downs; you, or LordofMyth. But, at this point, I think you two are tied for the "Most Annoying Reviewer" Award.
5971078 Took the words right out of my mouth.
It had a nice mystery that was building up with a villain that posed a decent threat while being credible. Now, it's just pure nastyness that keeps piling on.
well, with Aotrs Commander newest review their may be a new challenger. How many people have to tell you they aren't buying what you're selling? That your darkest before the dawn stuff isn't going to work because they don't believe their could be a dawn.
I loved the first story. This one started out great but you've lost me. The story isn't even interesting anymore. The characters aren't growing or being developed. Nothing is being explained. Its nothing but an Equestria torture porn at this point.
5971078
5971387
5971540
Maybe Jetfire is going through depression? When artists and authors fall deep enough into their depression, their work often becomes equally depressing.
(Sterling Archer)God damn it! Read the "The Hero's Journey", people.(/Sterling Archer) We're at the exact stage we're supposed to be at: Stage Eight....the Ordeal. The result might not be what we're used to but this will all be worth it. Canterlot is just buildings. They can build somewhere else after Reiziger self-destructs. Celestia is just a pony. They can find someone new to make the leader if she dies.
5972235 No, not really on both accounts. Cites are not "just buildings" and especially multiple cities. If someone came down and destroyed most of the major cities in your home country, it would not be a minor setback, it would be catastrophic. I will avoid making any real-world paralellels, because I'm sure any of you that have seen the news in the past ten-fifteen years can recall natural disasters or other incidents which devastate a country (and arguably, not even many of those utterly destroyed a city in its entirity, whereas Equestria has lost just about every named - major - city). And I'm not even broaching the philosophical issues, just practical ones. (And Equestria is already overloaded with refugees - it really, REALLY can't support two countries' worth of people with all the major infrastructure destroyed.)
Celestia is also not "just a pony." (One might observe that NO-ONE is "just a pony".) Given that she's reigned for over a thousand years (bare minimum), there is literally no human analogue and her effect on society is probably really incalculable to a modern human. Brushing off her (possible) death as being no different to a human leader dying is disingenuous.
Quoting literary tropes as justifiction doesn't help anything. The single most important thing in any form of entertainment media is audience engagement. There are limits to what you can do and hold the audience's suspension of disbelief. The last few chapters (the last two in particular) have eroded mine. I am now finding it increasingly implausible that, without a ridiuculous deus ex machina, that anything the ponies can do that will now prevent the complete collapse of Equestria as a functioning state (and all the suffering that results from that). (I will just observe that an industrialised society like Equestria or Earth actually cannot sustain itself without its infrastructure. It's not just "I have no home", it's "I have nowhere to store my food to stop it spoiling, nor access to medical facilties, all my communications lines are cut, all my organisational and distribution networking facilities and information is destroyed, etc.")
I also simply don't find the heroes being beaten on repeatedly is entertaining, no matter what justification you give it. This sort of thing is EXACTLY what I hate about modern media (and why I wouldn't touch Game of Singing Ice Chairs on Fire with a twenty-foot pole). And, importantly, it wasn't something this story was doing until the last few chapters - or I would have stopped reading, or perhaps never started if it had been. That's why I'm disappointed, since until then Jetfire had got the balance nearly completely perfectly. (Heck, as little back as chapter 29 I was still singing praises.) But the cumulative effect of Bad Stuff that has happened over the last several is mounting up, and the last two have been a tipping point for me, where enough Bad Stuff has happened, it's broken my suspension of disbelief, because I'm not now seeing Reiziger's hand at work, I'm seeing Jetfire's. It's coming across as being too contrived to set up "the heroes suffer."
5970829
Then where had Equestria's capital been for the past thousand years? Obviously it wasn't in the old capital in the Everfree since that was abandoned after Nightmare Moon ruined it. Canterlot is the obvious choice for a capital for Equestria after Everfree fell - it's not too far from the forest so it would be easier to move the surviving population to the mountain, it is in a highly defensible position and it is located near to the geographic centre of Equestria and is therefore roughly equidistant from the other regions/provinces of Equestria which make it perfect for use as a political and administrative centre.
If you're talking about the Family Appreciation Day episode then the place shown there was not Canterlot, it was showing the foundation of Ponyville some three generations ago by the Apple Family (Since three generations have passed so far - Granny Smith, Applejack's parents and now Applejack, maybe four generations or near to it with Applebloom) which we can assume was about a hundred years ago, give or take a couple of decades unless part of the innate magic of the Earth Pony brings with it greater vitality and longevity.
The destruction of Canterlot is a mortal blow to Equestria, just as Reizeiger says. Without Canterlot there's no real hope of Equestrian civilisation recovering. They've lost too much - infrastructure, the knowledge held in the Royal Library, thousands of their citizens, faith in their political leaders. At this point the Equestrian economy should be in collapse and the political system in utter turmoil. The surviving Equestrian cities and settlements will be cut off from their political and military leadership until they find out about the relocation to the Crystal Empire, and even then it is very remote compared to the rest of the country so it will take a long time for reports and orders to go back and forth between those that are left in Equestria proper and the Government-in-Exile in the Crystal Empire.
Most of Equestria now stands alone again Reiziger and his forces. There needs to be a counter-attack now, the Herd Lord must suffer a setback, Equestria needs to strike a blow against him and show some hope that he can be harmed or defeated.If they don't then the populace will succumb to despair and resistance against the Herd Lord will probably collapse.
verybestquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Mahatma-Gandhi-quotes-despair-quotes-truth-and-love-quotes.jpg
Alright, I've had it with all of this losing the war crap. Isn't it due time that Equestria just for once, JUST FOR FUCKING ONCE, starts scoring some victories against this berk?!?
Not that I even really care anymore, but wasn't there an interquel about Spike hinting he's related to some big evil dragon or something and might be the next dragon leader maybe? Did anything ever come of that?
Pretty much what nearly everyone else is saying. It feels like we've been in the "the night is darkest before the dawn" stage for half the the story. We need some light soon, or at the rate the story is hemorrhaging readers (4000+ views on the first chapter, 1500 around chapter 15, and now just a few hundred), there'll be very few of us left by the end. Speaking of which, I hope we are near the end, because I can't imagine what the reader response will look like if we get another five or ten chapters like the last few. If we aren't, it might be a good idea to truncate the suffering a little so that we are.
Anyway, prediction time. Whatever Rarity is up to, she Saw that defeating Reiziger requires everyone left to be concentrated in the Crystal Empire, so she joined him for the part of the war that is driving the refugees there and is doing so as non-lethally as she can manage with however much free will she can muster in her transformed state.
Rarity is right I do hate her the most.
She saw this was the best thing to do. She told Applejack and Applejack agreed that all those cites had to go, all those ponies had to die and Celestia had to be practically killed for the greater good. Equestria has to be in ruins. . The ends would justify the means.
Worse still her future sight takes away everyone else's agency in the story ; because nothing they could do or possibly could have done matters, it wont be as good as what she did. If Twilight could come up with some spell , if they found some way to use the elements? Doesn't matter Rarity saw it and knows for a fact her way is better. Making everything significantly worse is the best course of action. Just trust her.
5971078
Pretty much this. And I feel sort of the same way, because I'm at the point where I feel I have to read it just to find out what's next, not because I want to.
It's been one defeat after another, with only a little character development. And the fact that these recent dark turns have been in pretty short chapters hasn't helped things much, either. The major cities are gone, with the Crystal Empire remaining. Equestria's infrastructure is essentially gone. Trust in the Princesses is greatly diminished. The populace does not trust each other. Falaluria's been robbed of her Sight (though given the control Rarity's seemed to exhibit even in her current state, it's always possible there's a plan behind this). Almost all of the Mane Six have been compromised in some manner.
I was hoping so badly that Twilight would be able to pull off some kind of resistance. Some hidden power magic trick - anything to strike a blow back at Reiziger. But no, she has to follow along with Luna in the evacuation (getting scolded for her attempt to fight back, even), give in to despair, and watch as Canterlot crumbles off the side of the mountain.
I'm still tentatively holding onto ways this could turn out better, but I'm quickly running out of ideas here before it just results in sudden Deus Ex Machina, and I wouldn't like that at all. Right now, the few things I can think of are something relating to the Love magic in the Crystal Empire, external forces such as Applejack's reinforcements form Gildedale (it's still a big, big world out there), and tangentially related to that, Equestria fighting back by altogether rediscovering the use of the world's natural magic or something. Even then, I'm not sure of these ideas. Reiziger is fkn evil and powerful, and could probably overcome whatever beacon-zap-magic comes out of the Empire. And I'm doubtful that even Gildedale with their Earth Pony magic could stand up to him, even as a a collective.
Oh, and then there's whatever hinges on what Rarity saw, but that just falls to close to "Deus Ex Machina" for my taste.
Something needs to change for the better in this story, and soon.
Jetfire, quit being such a c*nt and fix it already.
5973811
Now, now, let's remain polite, shall we, please?
Insulting the gentleman making your free entertainment is unlikely to achieve anything other than making him decide to not bother; it certainly won't enamour him of "fixing it. "
In the end this IS Jetfire's story to tell, not ours. All we should do is (politely) voice our opinions (positive or negaitve) and if we bring critisism, we should do so with the intention of telling him why we are finding fault ("I don't like it" without reason is as unhelpful as "make it 20% cooler"). So that he at least knows our honest opinions, so that he may consider addressing them if he wishes. Or not, as it might be; it is his decision, at the end of the day, his story to tell. It might simply be that the story he is prepared to tell is one that a modest number of us are becoming less interested in reading, but he is prepared to keep telling it to the smaller number of people that do.
5973966
Well maybe it'll let him know some people are actually getting angry about the train wreck this story is becoming and actually do something about it. I had high hopes for this story, especially since I loved Dangerous Business, and I did love the earlier chapters, but this mess just annoys the crap out of me. By all means Reiziger has already won, Equestria as we know it is dead, and any chance of a believable comeback is getting more slim by the second, if not already non-existent. It really didn't help Canterlot of all got completely annihilated. "But we won, righ-" No, not really. Your capital city and another major city were literally erased. You can't rebuild out of nothing.
And, not meaning to be all pretentious or what, yes I know it's his story, but doesn't he write this for our entertainment?
/rant
5974099
Eeh, not necessarily.
Fanfiction, having no monetary component, affords an author the luxary of writing to whom ever they so choose, be it the wider audeince, just a handful of people or even just themselves. I know my sporadic couple of efforts over the years were because an idea had gripped me strongly enough to actually make me sit down long enough to actually write it. That my efforts appeared to mostly amuse the small number of people who actually read it was largely a bonus. And that was enough for me. Heck, I always said that if my efforts only ever had made one person smile, than it had been worth it. So, depends on the person in question, really, and to whom they are writing for.
5973966 A modest number? The first chapter has 4000+ views while this chapter is currently sitting just shy of 300. Even just five chapters ago there was nearly a thousand of us still reading. That's only a modest number if you are being very polite.
Maybe all of this is for nothing more than fun on Jetfire's part, but any fanfiction author with professional aspirations needs to pay attention to what works for an audience and what turns one away.
5972235
the ordeal has been going to long, with no end in sight.
And quite frankly I am sick of the heroes journey being the be all, end all of storytelling
5974541
Lolwut?
5974541
I had not looked at the chapter view statistics and was just going on the comments.
I never even really noticed there WERE any chapter views shown anywhere, until you mentioned it, actually...! (How long have i been on this site...!)
5974670 If I had a nickel for every author on this site I've seen blog and chat about wanting to write professionally someday, I would have a lot of nickels indeed.
And evil wins. The end.
5974602 I suppose this means that you're not going to be too happy to be reminded that there are only seven basic plotlines then.....even though that does render the constant fear I've seen of people stepping on other people's stories rather touchingly absurd.
5976150 *huge breath* FeanorWasOneOfTheHighElves,TheNoldorWhoWasTheBestCrafts...Elf?ArdaHadSeen.HeMadeTheSilmarilsAndGrewAttachedToThemAndItLeadToALotOfTroubleActuallyMostOrAllOfTheTroubleInThoseDays.
That was the short version XD
5974541
Wait, 300 views? At the top of this chapter I'm seeing 4,242 views, and if I hover it says something around 58k total views. Has the readership declined, or are people (like me) just taking some time to get to the new chapters?
5977246 My understanding is that the value up top is the number for the highest viewed chapter in the story (which is generally the first one) and the mouseover value is the sum of the view count on all of the chapters. For the count on a specific chapter, look at the end of the text just above the bottom set of up vote/down vote buttons.
In fairness, views do trickle in over time because not everyone reads on the first day of publication. At the exact moment I write this comment, this most recent chapter is up to 359.
The 669 views on chapter 29 is probably the most fair remaining reader count since it the most recent chapter that was posted more than just a few days ago. I wouldn't personally count someone who hasn't gotten to an update inside of three weeks to be an active reader on a given story.
5977311
Oh, I see what you're referring to. I didn't notice that, and well, I don't write (yet) so I guess I never worried about learning prior to this ^^" Thanks for explaining that to me.
It really is getting difficult to know whether or not any positive outcome can arise from this.
There is only so much ground one can stomp another into before the planet's molten core incinerates the victim entirely.
I think this fic is beginning to show some of the tendencies that Ocalhoun's One In A Million showed, which was all about Scootaloo's incredibly abusive and unfair situation when she went to magic school (yes you read that right; it's a "you-have-to-read-it" thing). Characters need victories every now and then. Even small ones.
And why the hell aren't Fëanor or Falalauria or any of the Red Deer helping?
So now Rarity's unspoken plan is guaranteed success. I will certainly enjoy the journey to its completion.
What interests me more at this point are the rank-and-file ponies as well as the deerfolk. How will ponies embrace these new revelations, how will they endure to build the new Equestria?
As for the deer, Falaluria has lost her Sight. Will she be healed by Fluttershy, or will she set a precedent for the deer of the future by rejecting their ancient gifts in favor of embracing a new future?
Or will the deer follow their Tolkein counterparts by accepting their decline and running away to a new land? (Did the Tolkien elves think that the new land would be a new beginning or were they just planning on going extinct elsewhere?)
>thy insubordination
thy and thine are like a and an
I loved this chapter. Celestia throwing Reziger around like that was awesome.