It struck Princess Twilight one night when she was about to fall asleep. She's a princess, and the princesses are there forever. Friends of princesses, however, are not.
Twilight doesn't want her friends to die before her. She doesn't want to be alone without her best friends. She'll have Spike, but even dragons aren't immortal.
Ever since that night, she's been stressing out – having nightmares, even. Which of course brought it to Princess Luna's attention.
Although Twilight's nightmares tend to end before Luna arrives, she knows something more than an impending deadline is bothering the new princess. The only way she can help is to alert the princess Twilight trusts most: Princess Celestia.
A response to the 'Twilight deals with immortality' fics and also my first work on this site.
Cover art(Used without permission; I give full credit): here
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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That's not a nice thing to call your friends. (It's in your description.)
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Oopsie
Fixed
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.
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Fair enough. Yeah, this isn't the best of my writing, but whatever, people seem willing to help improve or give upvotes or whatever.
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.