But I Don't Want To Not Die

by Cerulean Fantasy

An Alicorn-Related Explaination

But I Don't Want To Not Die
Cerulean Fantasy

---

Luna tore through the fabric of the dream in an attempt to arrive in time to see what it contained. She materialized mid-air, soaring down through the blank space of the dream and leaving hazy arcane smoke behind her.

Immediately she saw Twilight, and silently cursed the speed at which it is safe to travel safely in the dream-scape.

Twilight had flung herself upon some cobblestones and was sobbing. The space around the segment of stone was black and empty, Twilight's sleeping brain not bothering to render it. For some reason, Twilight wore gilded horseshoes – much like the other princesses – which were a cool shade of purple. Her tiara sat upon her head.

Luna landed on Twilight's small piece of reality. Said dreamer looked up, hastily wiping her eyes as her regalia dematerialized.

"I'm dreaming," She mumbled. Luna nodded, frowning slightly.

"This is not the first time you have had such a nightmare recently, Twilight Sparkle. I have not seen what pains you so, and yet I am concerned for you. Please, tell me what plagues you so,"

Twilight looked away and rubbed her eyes, hugging herself with her wings. After a moment, Luna just sighed.

"You shall wake soon. Be safe, Twilight Sparkle," With that, a cold wind began to sweep across the small dark space. Luna unfurled her wings and flapped upwards, giving one last concerned frown towards Twilight, who was staring up to her, ears folded back.

---

Twilight poked her tongue out, books whirling above her head. Expertly, she rearranged and sorted them all, creating a storm of levitating tomes.

Spike held a feather duster, brushing the empty shelves. Turning towards Twilight, he opened his mouth to say something when a plume of green fire erupted from his mouth in a large belch. Twilight jumped, and the hovering mountain of books was slammed against the ceiling with a suddenly neon glow before dropping to the ground as she yelped.

"Spike! Are you sure there's no way to give me some warning before scrolls arrive?!" Twilight asked in a stressed tone.

"Yes, there isn't any way. And are you sure you've been getting enough sleep?" Spike picked up the smoking scroll. Twilight looked away, sitting. She was silent for a second, until Spike waved the scroll excitedly. "It doesn't have the royal seal! Although it does have Princess Celestia's pass-code at the top," He padded over to the mildly surprised Twilight and handed it over.

"That's odd..." she said as she took the scroll in her magic. Unfurling it, she read the letter top to bottom, her ears folding back partway through.

---

My dearest Twilight Sparkle,

Luna has talked to me, speaking of her concern over your recent nightmares, that she hasn't witnessed fully. The way she speaks of them is making me greatly concerned.

I would like to see you personally in Canterlot. If something bothers you so much that you refuse to speak of it to Luna, then perhaps I might be able to offer you some ears. I to comfort you, dear Twilight, for I hate for my most faithful student to be distressed.

Please come when possible.

Yours truly,
Princess Celestia

---

"So, what's it say?" asked Spike curiously. Twilight didn't say anything for a moment, just looking at Celestia's letter. Eventually she sighed, conflict in her eyes.

"Spike, I'm... I'm going to need you to finish the weekend clean-up for me. The princess has requested my presence in Canterlot. I'll be back by the end of the weekend at the very latest," she said hesitantly. Spike's ear fins drooped slightly.

"You don't need me to come?" Twilight met his eyes as he said it.

"Spike, I don't know how I'll manage without my number one assistant in Canterlot, but the library hasn't been re-shelved in far longer than I would like. And... this is going to be about some personal stuff..." She glanced away again. Spike's ear fins perked again.

"The nightmares?" At Twilight's nod, Spike's eyes softened and he started picking up books from the massive pile.

"You better get going, then," he began, "I think there's a train leaving soon. You won't need much with you, Princess Celestia'll probably provide. And don't worry about me, I'll have Owlowiscious with me!"

Twilight giggled and smiled gratefully at Spike.

"Now I just have to figure out what I'm going to say to Celestia," she mumbled as a checklist flew into the air above the now speed-packing mare.

---

Twilight stepped out onto the train platform. Not wanting to get swarmed by princess enthusiasts, she had slipped her saddlebags over her wings.

After a quick glance around, she levitated her checklist out of her bags. She began to trot through the busy streets, heading for the palace automatically.

Canterlot is a beautiful city; it's truly the height of pony architecture. Even if tea parties and formal attire are not your thing, one must admire the classy buildings that look like they're straight out of a fantasy novel.

Funny how time passes quickly while going over checklists. Twilight looked up as she approached the guards at the gate.

"Hello, sirs. Princess Celestia wanted to see me," she said as she wiggled her wings out from under her saddlebag straps and unfurling them to be doubly sure the guards recognized her. The stoic guards hardly batted an eyelid and let Twilight through.

The fact that she was about to be talked to about her nightmares struck Twilight as she approached the throne room doors. Halting for a moment, she frowned, conflicted. What am I supposed to say? What if I say something wrong, or if what the problem is sounds silly?! Should I even try to explain?

Twilight put a hoof to forehead, feeling a headache coming on.

All too soon, the guards spotted her and swung open those big doors. Twilight gulped. She tried to hide her nervousness as she entered.

"Ah, Twilight! What a pleasant surprise it is to have you arrive so soon," Princess Celestia smiled and stepped down from her throne.

"My apologies for having to meet you here. There wasn't supposed to be any court, but some angry petitioners came all the way from Manehattan. You know how they can get when you refuse their only day of petitioning available," she continued, "I don't suppose they want to pay for extra nights at their hotel. Oh, but enough of my rambling! I haven't seen you in far too long, dear Twilight!" Celestia stepped forwards and gently pulled Twilight into a warn, one legged hug.

Sitting limply and letting Celestia do the hugging, Twilight numbly looked at a suddenly very interesting tapestry. Being so close to someone who...

Celestia interrupted her thoughts.

"Twilight. I can't bear to watch you like this. Please, tell me everything... You need someone to talk to about whatever is hurting you," Celestia whispered, leaning out of the hug and sitting, looking down at the smaller alicorn. Twilight returned her gaze. With a deep breath, she spoke.

"Princess? I... I mean to say... I-I don't want to not die...! That is, I don't want to live longer than my friends... I don't want to be im-immortal," she winced, "like you, Cadence and Luna..."

Celestia didn't say a word. She simply lifted Twilight up to her chest and wrapped her broad wings around her, giving the biggest hug she had given anypony in quite a long time.

"Twilight, I think I need to explain something. You're not immortal. Not even Luna or Cadence are. Luna and I live far, far longer than even dragons or windigoes, but we don't quite stay forever," she said, shifting and laying next to the stunned Twilight with a wing draped over her faithful student, "Cadence has aged since she foalsitted you, has she not? She and you are similar. You both ascended. She was given a horn, and you were given wings. You shall both age as normal,"

Twilight threw her arms around Celestia, beginning to sniffle.

"Oh, I'm so relieved! I thought I was going to have to live without my best-est friends... forever!" Celestia hugged her back, smiling regretfully.

"I should have explained this sooner, Twilight. I apologize," Twilight looked up frantically at that.

"No-no-no, Pr – er, Celestia! I should have at least tried to research the subject before I jumped to the conclusion of immortality, or asked if there wasn't anything on it! You could say we were both partly to blame," she assured. Celestia nodded slightly, smiling. Twilight paused, her ears perking.

"So ascended alicorns age normally and born ones don't? Wait, you and Luna were born as alicorns, right? Come to think of it, why haven't seen anything on the biological lifetimes of alicorns, or the biology or history of alicorns...?" she began. Celestia chuckled warmly as Twilight rapidly shifted to torn up young princess to curious scientist.

"There was never much reason for much to be written about alicorns; until recently, there were only two," Celestia said mildly. Twilight's ears somehow straightened further as she gasped.

"There isn't anything written about you?! No books on alicorns..." – Twilight gasped again –"I could write one! You and Luna could supply the information! Yes!" Seeing the now thoroughly cheered up princess going into planning mode, Celestia gently put a hoof on her shoulder, causing Twilight to pause and look back to her.

"One question, my dear Twilight, if you don't mind my asking; why didn't you talk to Luna about this?" she said, moving her wing over Twilight's back again. Twilight blushed and pawed at the ground sheepishly.

"Well... I sort of thought it would be rude to be so upset about something you princesses had to live with... and kept it to myself," she muttered. Celestia gave her another little squeeze.

"You don't need to worry about that with us, Twilight, but I think you know that now. I'm glad you're okay, now," Twilight nodded eagerly to the princess.

"Thank you, Celestia. Really, thank you. I was really tearing myself up over that," Twilight giggled suddenly, "You know, this will make a brilliant friendship report!" Celestia smiled.

"I'm right here. Mind if you give it to me in person?" she gave one last affectionate nuzzle to her close former student and stood. Twilight cleared her throat.

"Dear Princess Celestia..."

Author's Note:

Thanks for reading! Constructive feedback is welcomed and much appreciated as this is my first story on this site

Let's ignore the blushing of the cover-art ponies, shall we? This isn't a shipfic

Hehe, yeah, I upvoted myself

I did a minor edit, hopefully it feels slightly less rushed now I added a Twilight geek-out

Comments

[Ozymandias42]

Great until half of it. Then less and less ... for lack of a better word.. intriguing.
Finally, anti climatic.

Don't get me wrong the writing was good and the reactions plausible. What I didn't like though was how fast you resolved the problem you spend half of the story building, in the end.
Not only because of this inequality in writing I found it to be anti-climatic, but also because the problem is of far to elemental essence than to be resolved this easily.

Aside from that this was quite well written for your first story.
And I would say it speaks for you that my critique only applies to your pacing and buildup rather than to characterisation, world-building or other things.
In my opinion getting those things right is essential for a story to be enjoyable to read.
For a story to be perceived as satisfactory as a whole on the other hand, personally, I deem the construction of the arc of suspense responsible.

Tl;dr.: I like your writing. It's pretty good considering this to be your first story. I didn't found the story to be satisfactory to read though, since the second half of it is anti-climatic.

[FoolRegnant]

I have to agree that while the most basic aspects of this fic are spot on, the resolution is cleaely lacking. You set up a problem, but the resolution is just a few words. Twilight doesn't address her feelings of not wanting to outlive her friends, she doesn't address the new problem of Spike outliving her, Celestia doesn't make any point about her own ways of coping with outliving other ponies, and no real solution is presented other than "Nah, you were wrong, you're actually gonna die."
There is no mental/philosophical bent to ths fic, and it is ultimately just a headcanon filled ending. I suppose I should quantify my comment by saying that I like Twilight being immortal/outliving her friends, and that I feel that her response would be both to grieve and to find catharsis after the fact.

[Nightcolt]

5375265
I do not really see why Twilight would need to explain why she does not want to outlive (all of) her friends since that seems self-explanatory to me and how Celestia copes with it becomes mostly irrelevant once Twilight learns that she will not have to worry about it.

As for worrying about Spike outliving her, that would be Future Spike's problem and they presumably have 50+ years to sort it out. If he already knows he is going to outlive any regular pony he knows, that would also have included Twilight before her ascension and if he was old enough to worry about mortality, then his mind should have already been made up about having to eventually mourn her as well - not outliving them by centuries never was an option for him in the first place.

[FoolRegnant]

5375635
If Twilight is assuming she's immortal, Dpike would be, too. That means she has to now tell him that his assumptions and presumably his hopes, are wrong.
By saying that Twilight doesn't address her feelings about outliving her friends, I didn't mean why she wouldn't want to outlive them but rather why those feelings occuring in nightmares are so important to her. That's what I meant by needing a better solution than being told that she's mortal, the fact that she was haunted by the idea years before it would become relevant I felt needed to be addressed, as it seems to me all too convenient for the idea of Twilight being so fixated on deaths years away to be swept under the rug.

[Cerulean Fantasy]

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5375265
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Thanks, all of you. You all make good points. I feel sorta honored I've provoked these conversations.

Re-reading it, I realized that it did really feel pretty rushed. I might try and do a little editing to improve it, but only a little so I'll be able to look back and see how I've improved if I keep writing here.

Thanks again for the feedback

[Immortan Joe]

Fiends of princesses

?

That's not a nice thing to call your friends. (It's in your description.)

[Cerulean Fantasy]

5376019
Oopsie

Fixed

[videocrazy]

There really isn't much here to say, other than I agree with the previous posters in regards to its resolution. Beyond that, it also kinda feels generic. I suspect this is a result of the hurried pacing, but it feels like this is ground already well-trod. Nothing to make it stand out from other stories discussing Twilight and immortality.

[Cerulean Fantasy]

5381115
Fair enough. Yeah, this isn't the best of my writing, but whatever, people seem willing to help improve or give upvotes or whatever.

[Loganberry]

Not a bad first story, though there are some problems. Others have mentioned most of them, so I won't ramble on, but the ending does feel overly tidy and convenient. There's nothing much here that I actively disliked; it's just not very memorable. Still, it is a first story, and if you write any more I'm sure you'll be able to give us all something great.