The Long Night.
It means different things to different ponies. In Canterlot, Celestia traditionally throws a huge party. Meanwhile, all the pegasi retreat to their sky cites, and all the other ponies from Manehatten to Ponyville hurry home before dark, and lock their windows and doors.
Every year before now, Apple Bloom has always been sent away to stay with her friends or family during the Long Night. But this year, despite Applejack's objections, Granny has decided she is old enough to stay on the farm.
Apple Bloom is excited to finally be allowed to spend the Long Night with her family. To see just what all the fuss is about. Just what really goes on that she was too young to be a part of before now?
This year she gets to find out. But before the Long Night ends, she will wish with all her heart, that she hadn't.
Oh, so only one pegasus never stayed on the ground.
Pegasi, maybe?
Wha..? Like.
6202963 Thanks for catching that. Looked over the story again, noticed it twice more. Fixed.
6203646
Absolutely, positively, insanely, Amazing Story....I forever will love your story and call it one of the best on this site...I bow to you, a Sevant of Insanity
Wow. This had a good ending, but man did it scare me. You painted a great picture of those events. I may have found a story to read on Halloween and on the solstice.
On a side note I thought that you had included pomegranate due to its connection to the Greek Underworld.
6203804 Thank you very much!
After my little experiment with a Hellsing Abridged inspired story, (which bombed badly, despite me personally thinking it was hilarious), I was hesitant of attempting another story that was outside of what people were used to from me. Seeing the positive response I have gotten so far, I may just have to write a few more like this. There are still quite a few dark places I could shine a candle into...
6203856 Ironically, I had just sent a pm to Naturalbornderpy, wondering if the story was scary enough.
I had actually forgotten the story of Persephone until you mentioned it. I was so focused on solstice lore, that it had slipped my notice. Odd, considering I used to be a Greek pantheon buff, and I happen to love pomegranates.
I really liked this story a lot, it conveyed just the right amount of suspense and terror, with the perfect amount of build-up to it. There is one plot-hole I'd like to point out though. Alicorns are meant to respresent the power of all three pony races, including earth ponies. That means, in theory, they should be able to use earth pony magic too. In which case, Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and Cadence really could have made a difference after all.
Well written. I'm not so sure about how the alicorns don't or are not able to combat death given that are a combination of all three races.
That said iit wouldn't have been as tense if they could.
I'd love to see what kind of complications/reprisals will happen to death for its bending of the rules. I don't know how one punishes a primal force but there are rules that even death usually follows then there must be one heck of a rule enforcer.
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6207450 (Thank you for the fav, btw!
It is true that alicorns do have the ability to use Earth Pony magic. And although alicorns are very powerful from the combination of the three tribes magic, that wouldn't necessarily mean that they were as powerful as each tribes best magician in their own element. Much like Rainbow Dash can perform a sonic rainboom, and Celestia can't, the same could be said for certain rare unicorn, and earth pony abilities.
6209612 Hmmm, that makes sense actually. It's also like how Starlight Glimmer knew a spell for removing cutie marks, a spell that not even Twilight Sparkle herself was aware of. A spell that could even affect alicorns. I'm curious what kind of effect Death's touch would have on an alicorn. If the theory that alicorns live forever is true, then that would mean they have a limitless "number of pages in their book", correct? So would Death's touch have any effect on them in that case? Same question for Discord, since he also seems to possess immortality.
6209612 Ooh Fair point! It's kinda like a the various cutie mark talents.
6210338 I was thinking the same thing at work today. How many pages would it take before Death became more than just a living hunger? And if he considers an earth pony wizard a blue plate special, then an alicorn would be an all you can eat buffet. I had already wrote down a few ideas for 'The Herald's Tale', this is worth considering as well.
>>moonchosen That theory would likely, but this story really describe what allows alicorns or Discord to live as long as they have. And it never really says if Death steals a person's life force or their youth.
>>Quixotic Enigma
Which is something I'd like to know about, Death's draining abilities that is.
Good story and an interesting twist at the end. Didn't expect that to happen
6213599 Good to hear from you again RW. I'm putting some notes together for a possible sequel called 'The Herald's Tale'. In it I was planning on shedding some light on my version of 'Death', and also who The Herald was. Here's a hint, he has a very famous sibling.
I should mention that Longest Night, and The Herald are not set in the same universe as DFR and Dots. Right now Sin Whinny may be set in the DFR universe, I'm not sure yet.
Here's some trivia for those people, like myself, that read the comments.
The name Mr. Gryfe comes from the lyric's of a George Harrison song Crackerbox Palace.
"Sometimes are good, sometimes are bad, that's all a part of life, and standing in between them all... I met a Mr. Grief, and he said 'I welcome you to Crackerbox Palace... was not expecting YOU'..."
And the image of him in the video would certain scare a young filly.
Further trivia. That song was inspired by a meeting with the Real Mr. Greif,(pronounced Gryfe), at a music festival where he remarked that he resembled the late comedian Lord Buckley (Harrison had admired Buckley for many years). As chance would have it, Greif was Buckley's former manager, and he invited Harrison to come see Buckley's old Los Angeles home, which he called "Crackerbox Palace". Thinking that the phrase had the makings of a song, Harrison jotted the words "Crackerbox Palace" down on a cigarette pack, and later wrote the song. The song includes references to Greif ("I met a Mr. Greif") and to Lord Buckley ("know that the Lord is well and inside of you").
Video below.
6205446 No worries, this was so well written I got chilled by the first few lines. As the story progressed the world became more and more real to me until I could feel the winter's chill at the climax. If I were to be inspired to write a story based off something like this, would I have your permission to have a few similar rituals and use Gryfe's name?
6432207 Sure, be my guest.
On a similar note, I wouldn't turn down an "Inspired by' line in the credits if you felt like it.
Interesting story, but it has a rather large flaw at the end.
Why nto tell anyone when they now have personal connections to Celestia, one who has the power to save them from all this?
6585792 Celestia did know. That was why there Apple Family was there. There were earth ponies living near all the pillars, just so they could banish Mr. Gryfe for another year, if he showed up there.
Holy -. I can't remember the last time I genuinely felt afraid from a story. Usually, I would give my criticism at the end of the story, but I just can't get over how tense I still feel.
7426607 Thanks!
Equestria Daily said they would feature it after I fixed a few things they didn't like. I plan to get around to doing that, hopefully before Halloween, but I have no plans on changing the story itself. If anything, it would be fleshing out a few details. Glad you like it so far. And thx for the fav as well.
Excellent story. A lot on that have been said already, so I'll not beat the dead pony.
On the world building, superb work. The pride in carrying the burden "alone" is rather touching in how human it is. And rather cruel, too. They actually forbid others from trying to fight. I severely doubt there are NO other means to fight Death. Specially a world where unity is power and friendship is magic. Of course, that doesn't mean it would be easy to find such way. Much death would come before they found a way, and quite some despair when all ponies found out about it. But it would most likely work. Eventually.
The apples did something quite wrong, though. They let only four ponies to fight off death. And they do, apparently, Jack shit to create more life mages. Relying on mere luck for them to be born and "awake" in time for them to act. Extremely irresponsible, in the name of tradition, it target, pride. In a way granny herself calls upon that, when she mentions how she didn't know the wards could stop others. They let the knowledge be lost, and paid the price for that.
Again, that's an extremely humane behavior, enriching the story that much more
6210338 although the Celestia/RD example is good, the starlight glimmer one is not, I believe. An unicorn whose cutie mark itself is magic and that ascended as the Alicorn of magic (for friendship is magic) not being the mightiest unicorn caster is just plain wrong. More relevant, the show has shown that spells are knowledge. Power is not everything off you don't know how to properly use it. Twilight's power could be yen times greater that starlight, if the unicorn knew more efficient/powerful spells she could go toe to toe with the Alicorn. Such as knowing a cutie mark removal spell.
Of course, that does raise the question, are any of the two sisters ascended from an earth pony, if not born as amalgamations? If not, that could explain why they couldn't help. They didn't have that oomph needed for life magic (like twilight has for unicorn, being born an extremely powerful one herself).
7692814 Your correct about the Apple's pride. There are other branches at the other pillars that could send the Apple family some support if they would ask for it. I don't think Granny would actually risk Death escaping for the sake of her pride if she had thought that they couldn't handle it, but as Applejack has proven in 'Applebuck Season', it can be very difficult for them to see beyond themselves sometimes.
There was a spelling error in there somewhere, but I've forgotten where it is. Oh, well.
Anyway, actual comment:
Great story. Reminds me of the way Terry Pratchett characterises certain holidays in the Discworld as having far more ancient (and cruel) "stones and bones" (as it were) than one might think.
It's an invocation of a more primal age, when the dark of winter was no mere result of orbital position and axial tilt, but was fraught with peril, mystery, and terror.
6216807 The Mr Greif character in the video is not a quarter as terrifying as the statuary of the baby-eating monk.
7693887 Sir Terry was one of my all time favorite authors. He will be missed for a long time. I think they got 'Death' just right in the live action version of 'Hogfather'. (That's Terry Pratchett at the end as the store clerk).
Love the story, but what exactly happens at the other pillars when HE doesn't appear there? Also spelling:
They
Only one
An
Met
This one was really hard to take seriously. It's so overwrought, it veers into the funny. When Granny went "oh my god, he's learning" I really just wanted to go "Clever girl..." and start giggling. Apparently, Pony Death is actually Galactus and he even has his own Pony Surfer. For some reason. It's a better idea than execution, doesn't help that all the characters will start getting randomly eloquent and intensely verbose just in time do dump another bit of exposition. "Granny Smith" randomly puts her accent on and off like it was an old sweater. ...huh, that idiom really doesn't work in English.
Anyway, better idea than execution, but if ignore the parts where the individual character voices basically disappear and it descends a bit into purple prose, the writing is pretty solid and technically proficient, so there's that.
7771049 Technically proficient?
First time I've ever been accused of that.
Thx.