• Member Since 11th Jul, 2011
  • offline last seen Apr 24th, 2016

Midnightshadow


E

How long can it take to learn a simple lesson? A day, a week, a year? What if you are an immortal goddess, charged with the well-being of an entire realm? How difficult can a simple lesson be? Well, how many grains of sand are there in all the beaches in all the world, or how many stars?

Some simple lessons take an age to learn.

Chapters (1)
Comments ( 29 )

without Chaos, nothing can change and all will turn to dust, forever lost to the monotony of order.
without Order, nothing can last and all will break, forever lost to the maelstrom of chaos.
....
Did I just write that, sober?!

Wow, hauntingly beautiful and unexpected, yet I suppose on some level I saw it as happening somehow. I have never before and never will in the future enjoy Discord-positive stories. I think just writing "When you're evil" show how rigidly that position is held. But his entrance at the end really makes the story something impressive. Good show. Thumbs up.

Mighty. Just... mighty :pinkiehappy:

Small error though... an its/it's one, even. My pet peeve :twilightangry2:
> "it's absence had been pain"

tis a good start of a story. but there can be more to it.

Yet another wonderful story Midnight, very well done.

808543 Actually, this looks more like a one-shot to me. It tells its story, and doesn't try to overextend itself.
In my opinion, trying to continue this story would only hurt it.

808517
Ah, my eternal foe the apostrophe. I thought I'd eradicated them...

I don't have anything to say for once, but I'd thought that I'd show my support regardless. A great one-shot. :pinkiesmile:

Exquisitely done. Entropy, after all, is what chaos does when it's bored. If you want to avoid that, you've got to have someone around who can entertain it.

(Dafaddah removes ugly straw hat.)
Woah - man what a great story! I am totally impressed with the idea, the characterizations and the writing.

Dude - two lessons from the past two weeks:
1) Fry your laptop and go on vacation more often (if this is what results), and
2) Get a bucking DropBox account and back your shit up! I can't stand the thought of any of your work being lost forever.

808543
Actually, I think what we're seeing here is, in fact, the end of a story :ajsmug:

808587>>809863
possibly is. but it does leave things hanging.
like what is lesson 2? and will they try to rebuild what was or try something new? (like something on two legs prone to chaos)

811233 "Lesson 2"? Are you honestly expecting a "2" from Discord just because he gave a "1"? :pinkiehappy:

Goddammit I want more.

808485
finally some one else sees it!!!!

813101
fine. it would be lesson B

wow that was actually really good. The idea that nothing can ever be created without chaos is actually something that I always thought of. Another great story, cant wait for the continuation of "the ambassadors son" though. Really looking forward to it :twilightsheepish:

And I am inexplicably reminded of MYST. In particular, MYST III: Exile.
Three lessons are designed to show what the world in made of.

1) Power. Without power, nothing can exist. Nothing grows, nothing is built, there is simply nothing.
2) Nature. Nature brings stability and a system of mutual dependence.
3) Dynamic Force. Dynamic Force causes change and variation.

So it follows:

Power = Magic itself.
Nature = Celestia and Luna.
Dynamic Force = Discord

Magic is the life force behind everything.
Control creates stability, but too much prevents evolution, and everything becomes stagnant, eventually dying.
Chaos prevents this, but too much will destroy everything.


-Delta-

I really liked it, and I think it stands perfectly on it's own. I especially liked the sort of drifting consciousness of the sisters; what is time to an immortal, neigh, eternal, being such as they who are the guardians of that fanciful world?

809863
An end. And a beginning.

I had it in mind to write something quite similar to this, but I thought I should check first to make sure it hadn't already been done. Not only is it here, but I suspect it's a lot more concise than I could have managed.

1174320
Well I did say the end of -a- story. Doesn't mean there won't be more following it :twilightsmile:

1174320
1174333
I'm being stalked! :derpyderp1:

Glad you liked it, though to be honest it needs a run through to remove the suck. :heart:

Concept was brilliant; execution was as good as can be expected from a single-concept one-shot fic. I think a longer, multichapter piece would have done the concept more justice. I think you, as a writer, are at the level where you would have been able to pull it off.

A job awesomely done anyway :twilightsmile:

This was quite the clever story, and recalled to me Asimov's The Last Question, which is no small thing.

Hey Middy. Learn to use that "search by image" feature of Google Images to go over all your fics missing a "source" with their cover image.

You get this one for free :rainbowwild:
http://jackjacko-eponymous.deviantart.com/art/StellarDeities-239851248

Hmm. I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, it's very well told, and I do like the structure, the ending/beginning, the order/chaos thing, that's all quite good.

On the other, though, I'm not sure about a post show Celestia who embraces complete and total order at the expense of all chaos. It feels far too much at odds with her sense of humor, occasional pranks, and the at least slightly disorderly nature of Equestria itself. If everything were that orderly, would there be an Everfree, for example? Would ponies ever practice hobbies that have nothing to do with their cutie marks? Would there be adventure, and monsters, and other such things, in a perfectly ordered Equestria?

If this were a younger Celestia and Luna, on a previous lifetime, before letting go a bit this time around, I'd find it more palatable, but Discord in his statue and the confused mention of Twilight make it clear that it's not.

Still, I did very much enjoy reading it! Whatever quibbles I might have with the overall thematic choice, the story itself is quite well told.

Login or register to comment