Luna's Epilogue – Phases of the Moon
Luna’s Epilogue
Phases of the Moon
New Moon – Discord
“Are you still worried, my student?”
Celestia’s dulcet tones sailed above the noise of ponies chatting and reached the balcony; the afternoon’s events had quieted some while invigorating others. Luna’s ear twitched, then angled toward the conversation.
“Yeah, I’m just worried about Spike. I know Rarity doesn’t want to hurt him, but he’s just a little dragon. He doesn’t really know what he feels yet.”
Luna’s gaze lingered over the immaculately groomed unicorn in her courtly attire, the dress’s hind drapes splayed haphazardly across the floor. The dress didn’t matter. It was nothing—less than nothing; only the pony and the little whelpling in her tender embrace mattered.
Drink deep the healing waters, little ones, for thou art most deserving.
“Twilight, did you know any better when you asked me if we could slip away to a deserted island where we could spend more—”
“No! I mean, yes—I mean…” Luna didn’t have to look down to know Twilight’s face would be red as a beetroot.
“Beg pardon?”
Red as an apple? Far more fitting.
Celestia giggled—a melody of rainbows reflected off shimmering waters. “You were no different, my faithful student, but I certainly hope that little filly’s heart was safe in my care.”
“Oh! Of course it was.” Twilight’s voice developed a nervous tremble. “It’s just that… I mean…”
A faint growl emanated from deep in Luna’s throat.
“And there it is,” Thunderer said.
“There what is?” Luna’s reply was curt, her eyes still locked on Rarity.
“The unspoken double standard. The rule that she is above reproach. ‘But she’s not you,’ is what Twilight can’t bring herself to say. ‘She’s not perfect.’”
Luna shuddered, a chill running down her spine. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly.
“You’re stuck, Luna.” Thunderer’s voice carried the weight of a doctor delivering bad news. “It’s too easy for you to keep waiting. My duty as a guard is done, and my duty as your friend is to push you further. Therefore, I quit.”
Luna’s mouth twitched, but otherwise her face remained frozen. The noise from below flowed into her brain, echoing around the hole she felt inside until dulled by the ice in her veins.
“It’s all right to say it,” Thunderer said.
A few moments more, and Luna opened her eyes. “I still need you,” she said quietly.
“Well, that’s better than hating me, at least.”
Luna chuckled. “Can you not see I am trying to be traumatised? Anyway, I thought you always knew what I was going to say.” What little life seeped into her voice did nothing to warm her thin smile.
“No. It takes a little wordplay to wear that mask. We’ve been past that point for months now. I’m just making it official. You don’t need guards—you don’t need me… you just want me. I am ruggedly handsome, after all.”
The princess spluttered and snorted. “Stop it!” The grin spreading across her face warmed her, inside and out. “Whence did thou become such a rogue? I thought that was Seeker’s forte.”
“Right after I quit. But I mean it. You tried to spread your wings and got burned. We were your safe harbour and we were glad of it; now it’s time to try again and you’re hiding where the seas are calm. I can’t let that happen. Besides, my friendship with Celestia has only gotten stronger since I stopped working for her. Perhaps the same will be true here.”
The smile on Luna’s face flickered, the endless wellspring of ice in her chest spiralling into the bottomless void in her stomach. “You speak the truth. I know what I would do, but not how,” she said, falling back into a heavy frown. “Equestria is never as vast as when I think of the morrow. I would seek your counsel before you discharge yourself.”
“My pleasure. You can buy me a hot chocolate.” Thunderer smiled and raised a hoof onto Luna’s withers. “I know just the place.”
The sun hung low in the sky, bathing Canterlot’s dockyard in orange hues. A few ponies moved air-freight on and off the parked wagons, and the smell of honest work wafted under Luna’s nose. She fanned her wings, enjoying the gentle flow of the cool, evening air while she and Thunderer, his coat a deep terracotta-red now that he was out of uniform, approached the rowdy collection of ponies sat outside a small bistro on the edge of the dockyard square.
Splashdown stood behind a pale-green earth pony with a yellow mane and a pronounced bump in her belly. She barely fit the small table’s bench and leant back into her husband’s embrace. Seeker sat beside her, leaning forwards with a holly-green unicorn snuggled against his back, and Vanilla sat opposite with Silverlight, the taller and heavier breed of Canterlot unicorn, stood over the last seat. Vindicator and Glory completed the group, standing at the far side as Luna approached. All six guards still wore Luna’s armour.
“Hello, Luna,” the mare in front of Splashdown said, her voice as soft as silk. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“And you, Bright Meadow.” Luna took her place at the fourth side of the table while Thunderer walked inside the Bistro. “I trust he isn’t giving you too much trouble?”
“Not at all.” Bright Meadow’s hoof reached up and haphazardly patted her husband’s head. “He’s a bit of a baby, but I have experience with those, now.”
Splashdown winced and shied from the onslaught. “Help! Help! I’m being trampled by the elephant mare!”
“Watch it, Splashie,” Vanilla said, “or you’ll be roughing it on the couch again.”
“Let him have his bed, she can share mine!”
“Screw, you, Vindicator,” Splashdown replied.
“Language!” Bright Meadow swatted her husband on the nose. “There are ladies present.”
“Right. Sorry Silverlight.”
The unicorn rolled his eyes and Luna raised her voice. “And you. I presume that you would be Thunderer’s young sister, Holly?”
“Yes, Princess.” Holly’s voice bubbled with energy. She pulled away from Seeker and bowed, but Luna waved her off with a hoof.
“Please, no. We are all…” The word caught in Luna’s throat. Her eyes swept across the ponies before her, every one of them smiling with an infectious warmth that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Yes, we are all friends, here.”
From inside the Bistro, Thunderer called his sister, but she hesitated as she turned towards the door. Smiling, she trotted up to Luna and gave her a peck on the cheek so fleeting as to barely touch. Luna’s eyes followed the mare as she trotted inside with a spring in her step and her bright-red tail swishing behind her. Only when somepony sniggered did the princess realise her wings jutted out at half-mast, and a flush entered her cheeks.
Glory was the first to break into bellicose laughter, slamming a hoof on the small table repeatedly as the others joined in one by one until they all rocked with merriment.
“Stop it,” Luna said, folding her wings tight against her flanks. Even the softly-spoken Bright Meadow’s shoulders bounced with her giggling. “Why is this amusing?” Luna shouted, and Silverlight, who had tried to contain his laughter, spluttered and burst into a mighty guffaw, his eyes starting to water.
“Silence!”
The effect was instant. Nopony made a sound. Nopony moved. Behind the table, Holly’s snout and hoof pressed against glass as she looked out at a panting, trembling princess.
“Why?” The quiver in Luna’s voice match the tremble in her eyes. “Why do you laugh at me so?”
A half-dozen sheepish faces turned downward in silence.
“Luna?” Silverlight looked straight at her. “She was just being respectful. That’s all. She’s pretty much fearless—being Thunderer’s sister, after all. She’s usually a hugger, but we talk about you so she knows better. Please don’t take it personally. She’s just trying to be friendly and… it was kind of funny.”
Luna held the unicorn’s gaze a few moments before glancing sideways at the empty air where Thunderer wasn’t.
We were your safe harbour. Were…
Luna pawed at the ground. “We were foolish. Please accept our apologies.”
Silverlight stepped towards the princess. “You’ve never come down here before. Is there something you need?”
After a long breath, Luna’s face hardened, a touch of steel glinting in her eyes. “Something I need,” she repeated. “It was easy to forget that wanting your protection is not a sign of weakness—easy to forget that it is not the sum of who I am. It seems that I have repeated the mistake of being unwilling to risk what I have to get what I want. I need to make sure that does not happen again.”
Luna’s horn shimmered. Each of the stallions glowed, their armour unfastening itself by magic, floating off them, and falling to the ground while their natural colours returned to the coats and manes. Glory reared up and put his hooves on the table, looking every bit the image of the heraldic lion on his flanks as he shook out his golden-brown wings and mane.
“Put it away, butch.” Vanilla shoved the pegasus’s hooves off the table as all eyes turned back to Luna.
“No.” Luna’s voice came alive with her theatrical oration. “No longer should you be diminished because of us. Stand proud, Glory—and thou, Vindicator—brothers of spirit as much as blood. Thou extend to all who struggle a unity with which thee keep each other honest. Thou art warriors in the truest sense: beacons of hope for all shrouded by the shadow of despair, no matter its form. We are in need such ponies for what is to come.”
Vindicator’s soot-black hoof hammered on the table. “Yours to command, my princess, for this day and all days in fair weather or foul.”
“What he said,” Glory added, raising himself up with one hoof on his brother’s back and shaking the bandaged one at the sky. “But louder!” He burst into more belly laughs, dropping back to the ground and hoof-bumping Vindicator.
Bright Meadow leaned back and pressed her cheek against her husband’s. “Between Vindi’s prose and the overabundance of testosterone, I’m not sure if I’m going to cry or have my voice drop.”
Soft laughter rippled through the ponies, but Luna didn’t join in, and neither did the stallion still staring at her, almost frozen to a statue. “Silverlight,” Luna said. The stallion gulped. “I must apologise to you, more than your peers.”
“Apologise?” Silverlight’s paralysis broke, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Luna, you don’t have to apologise for anything, I—”
“Yes I do.” She lifted a silver-shod hoof and placed it on his chest. “This exterior, powerful, tall, and purest white—the epitome of Canterlot nobility—belies thy gentle heart. We see thee do more than understand us; we see thee share our every pain and every joy. We believed thy keen intellect and open heart was wasted on a guard’s life, yet we said nothing because thy company is desired.”
Silverlight flinched when Vanilla tousled his mane. “Take a breath, Silver; it’s all good. Luna, this isn’t your most inspiring speech. You might wanna cut to the chase before Silver things you’re sacking him.” The smaller, brown unicorn waved a hoof towards Vindicator and Glory. “They have a point, though. My guess is that this is about your earlier announcement, and you can count me in.”
“Good.” Luna smiled, dropping her theatrical facade. “Silverlight, you have earned a place at my side for as long as you want it. You have nothing to fear, but I have an offer that may be more appropriate to your considerable talents. I need an ambassador to magical fraternities across Equestria. I believe you are the perfect pony, hungry to apply your extensive knowledge wherever it can help.”
“I think I need to sit down,” Silverlight replied in a hollow voice.
Luna settled to her haunches as the large unicorn squeezed onto the bench. “You would have help, of course. I am certain Vanilla would return the favour, as he will require your knowledge, also.” Vanilla sprang a huge grin. “I am going to require a hearth master.”
Vanilla’s smile turned wooden. “Silver,” he whispered loudly, leaning into his comrade. “What’s a hearth master?”
“Hearth Master. Archaic. Senior staff of a lodge or estate subordinate to a seneschal. A hearth master oversees the well-being of residents and guests of said lodge or estate including travel both to and from accommodations, diplomatic missions, and formal provision of services.”
“Oh, yeah.” Vanilla patted Silverlight on the back. “Gonna need your help plenty, pal.”
“But,” Silverlight said. “If you’re appointing a hearth master then you’ll want a seneschal which means… Wow. The last lodge was dismantled by the aristocracy centuries ago.”
“And unchallenged, the so-called nobility have fallen to corruption.” A bitter edge crept into Luna’s voice. “A fact I mean to challenge, but one pony, even a princess, can do little. I need ponies of character and will to lead by example in support of those who need it most. And yes, I will need a seneschal… Splashdown.”
The pegasus stiffened. “Huh? What about Thunderer?”
“He has expressed a preference for training recruits. He believes you are more than ready.”
Splashdown pursed his lips, slowly swinging his jaw from side to side and Bright Meadow twisted her head to look up at her husband. “You know I’ll support you, whatever you choose.” He leaned in and gave her a slow kiss.
“I know, but it’s my job to support you, too. We all knew something was coming, but this is a risk, and since that long chat with Thunderer’s dad, I don’t play dice with my children’s future.” He reached a hoof down and patted her belly, and she, in turn, stroked his azure coat gently.
“We’ve talked about this; I know you don’t want to go backwards. If it was your son…” Bright Meadow pressed his hoof into her. “If he had the chance to follow his dreams, what would you tell him?”
The door to the bistro swung open with the ringing of its tiny bell and Holly strode out into the silence that fell across the ponies. She sat beside Seeker and leaned against him while Splashdown ran his other hoof through his wife’s blonde curls.
“You’re going to make enemies and we all know it,” Splashdown said. “I can live with that. I guess I even like it, but I can’t say yes without security. Two years redundancy at my current pay, but I’ll work it off at half of whatever wages we can agree, and I have to be based in Canterlot to be near my family. I’m no Boomer, but what I want can never come at the expense of my children’s security. It’s a deal-breaker, so take it or leave it.”
“You’re going to force me to speak with those detestable little accounting weasels?” Luna grumbled and sighed. “Very well. I can only agree in principle until then. Now, Seeker, what say you? I mean to find ponies both literally and metaphorically lost: those without a voice, or who know not where to turn in times of strife. Is the pony with a compass on his flank interested in such a task?”
Seeker, his coat barely a shade lighter than Luna’s guard colours, frowned deeply and huddled over the table, offering no reply.
“Sweetheart?” Holly leaned in and rested a hoof on his hip. “You can tell her.”
Stretching her wings briefly, Luna dipped her head to try and catch the stallion’s eye. “Tell me what, Seeker? What burdens you?”
Still he said nothing, his silence echoed by his onlooking companions. Holly whispered into his ear and received a mute nod in return. “Princess Luna, could Seeker and I to speak to you in private? As in, now?”
“Of course. I have a spell, if you would both step away from the table.” Luna hopped backwards with a beat of her wings, taking in the mixture of shocked and confused expressions before turning her eyes back to Seeker. The stallion dragged himself free from the stable and plodded towards her until Canterlot’s dockland vanished, replaced by an endless starfield in every direction. “There. A mere illusion, but none will see or hear us in here.” She stared at the stallion, his head drooping as if made of lead. “Seeker… I’ve never seen you like this. I am concerned. Please speak of what troubles you.”
Seeker tested the ground beneath him with a hoof while Holly did a full turn, gazing out at the wealth of galaxies and nebulae that filled the backdrop. Coming to a stop, she rested a hoof gently on his shoulder before sliding her forelegs around his neck.
“You haven’t seen me like this,” he said, his voice starting small and growing. “But that’s kind of the point isn’t it?” Holly released him and backed away. “Maybe that’s because you only ever pay attention to what you want and not how it affects everypony else.”
Luna watched the stallion’s wings flare slightly with each stressed word, but despite the rising venom in his voice, his eyes did not rise to meet hers. A shiver ran up her spine. Even if she had something to say—which she didn’t—surely she owed him this chance to speak his mind? Isn’t that what she’d wanted all along?
“Oh sure, you talk about being honest with each other, but it’s so much easier being honest about doing whatever it is you were going to do anyway than lower yourself to asking what we lowly guards think of it. No… what I think of it.” Finally, he stamped a hoof and burst into shouting. “You make this big deal out of ponies putting you up on a pedestal, but you act like the very thing you despise! Did it even occur to you to wonder how we would react? Did you even care? Can you even understand that you talk of being friends as you treat us like toys? Toys! Doesn’t matter what we want; it only matters what Luna wants and we get to play along as if having our lives turned upside down is supposed to be a privilege. I like being a guard! I liked whatever it is we had! Would it hurt so much to ask whether we actually wanted it before you changed everything? Heavens above, we might even have had some ideas!”
He still wouldn’t meet her eyes, but Luna’s mind swam in the void where Seeker’s rant ended. She’d stared down Discord and fought every manner of creature Equestria had to offer, but as the stallion’s seemingly small frame slouched, she was utterly powerless.
“Pray continue. Do not be afraid of your anger; it seems I have earned it.”
Seeker puffed out his cheeks, then raised his head to finally meet her gaze. Whatever anger had burned there was gone.
“Few ponies ever believe me when I say my life hasn’t been easy.” He looked to one side and extended a wing to touch the silent unicorn sitting near him. “Most just think that being a good looking guy gives you everything on a silver platter. Do you have any idea how petty and vapid most of the mares that hit on me are? Can you even imagine how infuriating it is that the ones who don’t treat me like I’m arrogant for wanting more are usually the ones so arrogant that I can’t stand them? Luna… believe me when I say that I understand the things you’ve been talking about this last year, but I need you to understand that I want it for me, not… not for you.” His head bowed again, and Holly slid in next to him.
“It’s all right, Sweetheart. I’m sure Luna understands how it feels for ponies only to see what’s on the outside.”
Luna tensed as the mare gave her a withering stare. She could have hidden how much she’d needed that hint. She could have.
“I cannot lie: too many silences have pained me as much as ill-tempered words. I did not know—I did not see—the pain hiding in plain sight. Nor can I pretend I understand, Seeker.” Luna frowned and pursed her lips; her next words lurked just beyond the veil of her consciousness, but just as her own burden had lessened with Rarity’s attention, so did the weight on her faithful guard’s shoulders seem to lighten through hers.
“So… umm. What do we do now?” he said, finally letting his gaze wander to the endless drifts of space around them. Luna let her own gaze linger on him, his outward show of relaxation loosening the icy grip on her heart.
“I do not know,” she replied softly. “I don’t know how to fix this, and I confess that it frightens me.”
“You don’t fix it.” Holly’s voice carried the hard edge of her stare. “I don’t know what my brother has been filling your head with, but it isn’t your problem to fix. It’s a relationship; you both have to talk about it, if that’s that you want. You’ll find he’s good at that if you just… What is it?”
Luna squeezed her eyes shut, suppressing the shiver that ran down her spine.
“There’s another pony she needs to have that talk with,” Seeker said. Luna breathed rapidly as the sound of his hooves closed. Only when she felt him press gently against her neck did her eyes spring open. “Friends,” he said. “That’s what you wanted isn’t it?”
Her breathing slowed, but one thought—one pony—pushed any attempt at forming a reply aside.
“This is what friends do, when it’s needed,” he continued. “I won’t follow you, Luna—I can do that in Celestia’s guard—but I’ll go with you, into the dark places where other ponies fear to tread. You’re at your best when there is one thing you can focus on, whether it’s holding Blessing tightly or fighting a life-or-death struggle against an unstoppable abomination, so, you want to find the most downtrodden, victimised, and abused pony you can and bring ten kinds of fire and thunder along for the ride. And when the dust settles you want ponies to look up and say, ‘That’s how a real pony acts.’ You want to inspire, and not because you want to be a hero, Luna, but because you are. You have a vision of another kind of Equestria; I see that. I see you, and I’m in, if you’ll have me on my terms.”
“Now.” Seeker took a step back. “Go up to that spot on the mountaintop you love and scream until the feelings go away. I’ll tell the others that we’ll take things nice and slow, shall I?”
Luna’s head felt like ten clouds had spontaneously appeared inside it, filling up every space where meaningful thinking might take place. Her eyes shimmered, but no tears fell. Her legs trembled, but held firm. When Seeker stepped back she looked into his face and saw something new: pride. Something had changed for him—something that would never be undone. She nodded, but for now, the top of Canterlot Mountain called, and she dissolved into a cloud of magic, racing toward its peak.
Crescent Moon – Dissonance
Luna tapped Rarity’s leg again, her gentler attempts at waking the unicorn thwarted by earplugs and an eyemask. Such mundane contrivances were aggravating.
Rolling onto her other side, Rarity clutched her bedsheets tightly for a few moments before jerking awake. “Luna?” She sat bolt upright, hurriedly pulling her mask off.
“You’ve been expecting me.”
“Hmm? You’ve very quiet, Luna. Is everything all—oh my.” Rarity pulled the plugs out of her ears. “I’m sorry.”
“You’ve been expecting me,” Luna repeated, resting on her haunches by the bed. She wore a smile, but it held little warmth. “After that letter, perhaps it would be truer to say you have been hoping that I would come.”
Rarity winced and slid down under her sheets slightly. “Oh dear. It’s the expectation, isn’t it? I’m sorry, Luna. I can’t help it.”
Luna’s smile warmed slightly. “In truth, your letter was well timed. It seems I found some whole new mistakes to make and your words were a welcome surprise. Yet… I can’t do this. Even now you look at me with those same eyes, as if we’re suddenly the best of friends. I wish it were that simple but—”
A white hoof pressed against her mouth.
“You’re right.” Rarity withdrew her leg and climbed out from beneath the covers to lie on top of her sheets. “It’s just a silly fantasy, and I’m sorry.”
Luna shook her head emphatically. “It’s not silly and neither is it your fault.” Climbing on the bed, she dangled her hooves off the edge and gestured to the spot next to her. Rarity complied, pressing firmly against Luna’s side and beaming a wide smile. “I need to tell you something because I don’t know how else to explain this. I have said nothing before in case you think me ungrateful, but the truth is that bringing me back cost me more than I have admitted to.”
She paused and searched the unicorn’s face for reaction, but there was no hint of disappointment or shock, only concern and patience. Luna took a deep breath.
“Return rainwater to a cloud and it will fall again soon enough, so the Elements took much from me: memories locked away to be overcome one at a time, reclaiming some parts of my old life and discarding others. To you, I look fully restored, but I am far from complete. That is what your friends saw on Nightmare Night, and the more I comprehend what it means, the more I see that this path is a long one. The pony you wrote about in your letter is not me. It’s you—or at least, what you desire to be. Perhaps I desire that too, and perhaps that is what brought us together, but I do not feel free to truly find myself in the presence of such company. I wish it were not so, but I must distance myself from you.”
The unicorn leaned in, and Luna extended a wing over her. “You have every right to be disappointed. After that day, you have every right to be angry, but it is my hope that you understand. That is why I had to speak to you face to face.”
“I do understand,” Rarity replied quietly. “I’m not saying it won’t hurt, but you took a horrible nightmare and turned it into something I will treasure forever. It was worth it.”
Luna rested her muzzle gently atop Rarity’s head. “Know that I am not abandoning you. Though I ask you to respect my wishes, I leave you this as a reminder that, should you have need of me, I will welcome you warmly.” With a shimmer of her horn, a shadow crept from one corner of the room and took form as a dress-pony garbed in her lady-in-waiting attire, its countless tiny diamonds twinkling in the moonlight.
Rarity gasped and sat up sharply. “You’re… you’re giving this to me?”
“No. It is mine, and I will return for it someday. Do you understand?” Glancing to one side, she saw the unicorn’s eyes and grin widening. Luna withdrew her wing and straightened herself up. “You may,” she said haughtily, and Rarity lunged, wrapping her legs around Luna’s neck.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Rarity kissed the princess’s crest before hugging tightly.
“You seem more comfortable around me, at least,” Luna said with a wry grin. “I have one more thing for you.” Another shadow appeared in the air and transformed into a golden disc with ‘Real Equestrian Hero’ emblazoned across the centre. “My sister told me Twilight asked about acknowledging Rainbow Dash’s valour. We decided on this, and under the circumstances, I thought you might appreciate the chance to present it to her yourself. I’m sure I can rely on you to find an appropriate ribbon, yes?”
The medal glowed, snared in Rarity’s magic as she set it down on the bed between her forelegs. “Luna… It’s—”
“Yes. I thought so.”
“I don’t—”
“Nothing need be said.” Luna relaxed, letting her eyes drift shut.
Rarity snuggled into her shoulder again. “I don’t suppose—”
“Just for a little bit.” Luna’s wing spread over the unicorn.
Ten minutes of cosy silence later, Luna tucked the sleeping unicorn into bed, kissed her gently on the forehead, and leapt out of the bedroom window.
Half Moon – Commitment
“Twilight. Wake up, Twilight.”
Spike dodged the hoof that tried to swat him. “Wake up!”
“Aaaah!” Twilight cried, sending the dragon barrelling to the floor. “What is it? What’s going on?”
Spike sat up, rubbing the back of his head. “It’s Princess Luna.”
Twilight yawned and stretched as she sat up. “What in Equestria would Princess Luna be doing here at this hour?”
“Well, I am the Princess of the Night.”
“Ahhhh!” Twilight cried again, falling out of bed and meeting the floor chin first. “Princess!” She picked herself up, rubbing her jaw. “I had no idea you were coming!”
“Perhaps that would be because you were not told.”
“I… err… ummm…”
Spike stomped towards the door. “I’ll go make a pot of coffee. She won’t make much sense otherwise. Would you like some, Princess?”
Luna shuddered. “Keep that foul ichor away from me, please.” She watched him leave and turned back to catch Twilight straighten stiffly, as if she hadn’t just been trying to make her bangs presentable. The unicorn laughed nervously.
“So, Luna, what brings you here at such a late hour?”
“Have you not been requesting my attention?”
Twilight’s bleary eyes sprang wide open. “Oh, yes! I was starting to worry that you might be avoiding me.”
“I was.”
“Oh,” Twilight replied, a little too slowly to sound comfortable.
Too easy.
Luna grinned. “Please allow me to explain. My sister and I avoid crossing paths if we can avoid it. She is your mentor and I have no desire to trespass upon her domain; it is for Celestia to discuss the matter of your talents when, and if, she sees fit.
“Secondly, I have just informed Rarity that I will be avoiding further contact for the time being. Personally helping you with your research project with you would doubtless be painful for her.”
Twilight stared blankly for several seconds. “Wow. Okay. I had no idea… Is something wrong between you and Rarity?”
Luna sighed and fell back onto her haunches. “Not as such. Where Rarity sees Canterlot as a place of high society and refinement, I can only see decadence and monumental failure. I alone understand Celestia’s intent for Canterlot, and when I left Equestria it was nothing more than an ideal. To return and find such a hollow shell of that ideal tells me that my sister has sacrificed too much to keep Canterlot, perhaps even Equestria, functioning. Canterlot is rotting, and the Equestria I remember is gone. I mean no disrespect, but it can be better. It must. My sister is, and always will be, the public face that our subjects look up to. So I must become that which strikes fear into the hearts of the impure.”
Twilight blinked and shifted uncomfortably. “Umm… Princess Luna? I’m not sure what that has to do with Rarity…”
At first, Luna scowled, but the look quickly melted. “Oh. Our thoughts may be a little preoccupied.” She sighed heavily. “It is me. She looks at me and sees something I am not comfortable with. I could not live with myself if I came to resent her because of it, so I must decline your request for assistance.”
“However,” she continued, “I will assign Silverlight and Sonata to assist you. He has no other duties for several weeks, and she is already well versed in the necessary magics.”
Twilight grimaced. “Sonata? Really? Do you think that’s such a good idea?”
“I inquired as to the nature of her fixation with you. It seems she has concerns about your potential—that you are the next Nightmare Moon waiting to happen. That, of course, is ridiculous.”
“Oh.” Twilight chuckled nervously. “Of course.”
“Rest assured that could never happen.” Luna turned away from the books and levelled a hard stare at Twilight. “After all, if you were to run amok, you would have to face me, not Celestia.”
Twilight shrunk under the glare, and Luna broke into a wicked smile. “My sister warned me that you were adorably cute when you were nervous.” The unicorn’s cheeks instantly turned red.
“She did?” Twilight quickly covered her face with a pillow.
Luna rolled her eyes. “Too easy. I will send Silverlight after sunrise. Be gentle with him; he’ll probably be as nervous as you are.” Without waiting for a reply, she dissipated into a fine mist and poured out of the window.
The bedroom door flew open and Spike strolled in with a pot of steaming coffee. “Hey. Where’d Princess Luna go?”
Twilight silently peered back at him over the pillow.
Spike stared at her for a moment, checked behind him, then stared at her again. “What?”
Gibbous Moon – Focus
To say that White-Mane Falls was secluded was an exercise in understatement. The waterfall itself was tremendously high, resulting in a spray that could be seen for miles around, and the surrounding terrain made access dangerous for anypony not in possession of wings.
“It’s perfect for him.” Luna stood on an outcropping below the upper lip of the cliff—a sheltered spot below a secluded town.
Seeker lay beside her, eyeing the vertical climb to the top and the wooden winch-and-basket contraption that serviced it. “How’d you figure? Looks like a deathtrap to me.”
“It’s isolated—a small bubble largely undisturbed by newcomers. He can build relationships here without being crowded. But even this will be a challenge for him.”
“Huh.” Seeker nodded slowly at first, then with more conviction. “I can dig that. I imagine you’re a little jealous.”
Grinning, Luna shot him a quick glance. “Perhaps, and I think it’s time for you to go. They will arrive shortly, I’m sure.”
“I still don’t see why you feel to have to do this alone, especially when he’s bringing friends.” He eyed the winch one more time and stepped towards the edge of the outcropping. “See you at the bottom, Luna.”
She didn’t hear him jump. Only after she laid in the thick grass did she hear his wings snap out about halfway down. It did seem like fun, but she couldn’t risk the distraction; this conversation could make or break her will. Stormcloud needed somepony he could depend on and that wasn’t her—nor was it likely to be for some time.
Minutes trickled by, each filled with unease as little shocks of adrenaline sent icewater flowing through her veins, and all of them dwarfed by the deluge that momentarily halted her breathing when two little faces peered over the lip above her. One was the familiar face of Stormcloud, his horn filed down to a flat patch of bone on his forehead, and the other a cream coloured mare with dark blue frizz and a big, dopey grin. Starkicker, his letter had said, along with a warning about an unhealthy dose of hero worship.
As she stood, the other pony she had been told to expect launched off the precipice. This one, also a pegasus, was white and closely resembled his name.
“Firemane, I presume?” Luna said as the stallion landed.
“Yes, your majesty.” He gave an extremely formal and precise bow, holding himself low.
Luna narrowed her eyes. “Luna.”
“Of course, Princess Luna.”
She sighed. “Guard training, if I am not mistaken.” Firemane raised himself up, eyes fixed straight ahead.
“Failed basic. ‘Too fiery’, they said. Think it was humour, Princess.”
“At ease, Firemane. You will look me in the eye and refer to me only as Luna. Is that clear?” The stallion’s stance loosened and his eyes found her without hesitation.
“Yes, Luna. Permission to speak freely, Luna?”
“Always.” The princess narrowed her eyes again. “You wish to speak about Stormcloud?”
“Yes, Luna. Stormcloud says he made it here a week after fleeing Canterlot, so, almost a month ago. Princess Celestia has sent three envoys: a doctor, a social worker, and what I can only guess was a shrink. He talks about you endlessly—you were his entire world—yet a month later and the first we hear of you is that you have just decided to turn up. A month. He’s a mess. He cries in his sleep without even waking up. He changes from wallowing in self-pity to fits of rage in a heartbeat. I’d have had nothing to do with him, but my sister insisted we take him in. She says he needs stability, so I want to know what you plan to do because turning up when you feel like it is unacceptable.”
‘Too fiery’ ran through Luna’s mind. The stallion’s eyes burned, and while he controlled his voice, it still carried a forced stiffness to it. Passion, conviction, strength. She smiled. “It was a long time ago, but I still feel responsible for him. Yet, I am not fit to care for him as I would like and it pleases me that speak for him with such vigour. I believe he needs to know that I have not abandoned him. Beyond that…”
“A month, Luna.” The words hung there for what seemed like minutes. Tears welled up in Luna’s eyes and Firemane’s voice softened. “I assume you have your reasons, but it’s abandonment to him—though, he loves you too much to say.”
Luna sank back to her haunches. “What would you suggest?” she asked quietly. “I cannot offer him stability; I am not the pony he wishes me to be. My… friends,”—the word still didn’t come easily—“think I should distance myself entirely, but presented with two choices that will both bring him pain, I know not what to do.”
“I’m sorry. Starkicker does the touchy-feely thinking; I believe hard truths are preferable. So, uh…” Firemane rubbed his ear—a first sign of nervousness, perhaps? “You obviously care and he’s a lot more perceptive than me… maybe we should ask Star?”
Luna nodded.
“Star!”
Starkicker fell off the clifftop, so startled did she seem to hear her name yelled. A thrashing of legs preceded the use of her wings, and she landed heavily on the outcropping, but her initial embarrassment quickly gave way to a dreamy, wide-eyed stare—the kind of sycophantic, star-struck idolatry that threatened to draw Luna in and steal her strength like some kind of vampire.
The hairs on Luna’s crest bristled and she rose sharply to her hooves again.
“Star,” Firemane said, though Luna couldn’t tell if he were responding to her reaction or his sisters because she couldn’t take her eyes off the mare. “Luna’s isn’t in a place to help with Stormcloud right now. I think she’d appreciate… Star!”
Both mares turned to him, their focus broken, then back to each other.
“Princess?” Starkicker asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” The word burst out as Luna fanned her wings. Why should she have to risk opening herself up to satisfy this mare's petty need to validate herself? “Your advice regarding Stormloud is required. That is all.” At least Firemane didn’t seem fazed by her outburst. He’d spoken his mind—had a firm opinion. He was safe.
“I think Luna has agreed to leave him to us,” Firemane added quickly. “She just isn’t sure how to avoid hurting him now.”
Starkicker shrank away under Luna’s glare.
Good. Do us both a service.
“I-I… I mean y-you can’t. N-not really.” The pegaus backed onto the rockface, leaping into the air and spinning in place to see what she’d hit before turning back just as quickly.
Pathetic. Just another selfish cur looking to prey on me for her own—
“Luna!” Firemane’s voice barely penetrated her thoughts. “What in Celestia’s name are you—”
“Silence!” She turned her eyes on the stallion with a sneer and her wings fully spread. He didn’t buckle. On another day she might have liked this one. “You dare mention her name in my presence? She—”
The world stopped.
Luna looked back at the cowering mare, huddled and pressed into the corner where rock and grass met. Small, afraid… not a vampire, nor any other predator.
She turned back to Firemane, distantly aware of her jaw hanging open and ears folded down, but he didn’t look angry. He should have been angry. Sinking to the ground, she muttered ‘I’m sorry’ over and over as the stallion took off, and at first, the need to look up glanced ineffectually off a wall of forced indifference—or perhaps numbness.
That look. That look of pity. That look that said she needed to help. Startkicker had that look, and that need outweighed any fear.
“Come forward,” she said in her cracked voice. The mare walked slowly toward her, the war between conflicting emotions present in her every, tentative step. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“I know …I-I think.” Starkicker glanced up at the cliff top, her movements sharp—her breathing ragged. “Stomcloud already told me a lot. I-I’ll take care of him; I promise. He just n-needs to know that he didn’t do anything wrong. He needs to know it’ll be okay. He needs to know… He needs to know that you’ll be okay. He needs to believe that.”
With a heavy thud and the sound of flapping up above, Stormcloud landed in front of Luna. She stared at him, his face the familiar expression of an unspoken question: ‘Again, Luna?’ She’d missed that look, and for once, maybe, she even missed the undertone of ‘Just hold me and tell me it’ll be all right’.
He didn’t say anything, but then, in all their time she’d never looked this much of a mess. “Come,” she said, patting the ground in front of her. Her tears adhered to no sense of discretion and ran freely before he’d even lowered himself to the ground. By the time he did, she threw her legs around his neck. She was Luna, Princess of the Night, and she didn’t do bawling and wailing, but he was no longer her charge—no longer her responsibility—so perhaps, for once, she could let him see beneath the mask.
She’d come to tell him that she wasn’t coming back, but she’d leave an unwanted trespasser—she was the one who would miss him. How long could she keep making the same mistakes over and over again?
Full Moon – Harmony
Normally, Celestia would barely react to her entrance. Luna alone had the habit of simply wandering in unannounced—there was a certain mystique to the practice that gave her a sense of ease, like wrapping herself in a protective enigma.
Today wasn’t normal.
“Luna,” the princess said with a familiar spike of concern in her voice—and not the pleasant kind of familiar. She lay on the thick rug of her quiet room before a roaring fireplace, a selection of books, papers, and scrolls strewn about her. “You’ve been gone a whole week. Is everything all right?”
She may as well have said ‘tell your big sister how she can fix everything’, but at least the reason why it rattled Luna’s cage was no longer obfuscated.
For a moment, Luna paused, scanning the wide eyes that glittered with firelight as they regarded her. All else aside, there was no doubt that her sister was at least being authentic.
Forgoing a reply, she stepped forwards, an easily-recognisable book floating at her side, and settled onto the rug with a very precise and intimate closeness. She set the book down before them, closed her eyes, and released a long, pent-up sigh.
“Luna, you’re scaring me. I feel like you’re growing distant again. I know you’ve been busy lately, but I wish you would tell me what’s wrong.”
Be careful what you ask for, sister; it may come back to bite you, and I’ve been known to bear fangs.
Luna still didn’t respond. She was a statue, save for her slow breaths and the light wafting of her starry mane.
Celestia leaned in, craning her neck to draw Luna into a soft embrace. “I love you.”
“I know,” Luna said softly. “But I need to ask you something. I need to know why.”
“Why?” Even with her eyes closed, Luna felt the scrutiny of Celestia’s gaze. “Why what? Why do I love you? Luna, you’re my sister… my only remaining family.”
“Not good enough,” Luna replied, her voice rising with a hard edge.
Before them, the Encyclopaedia of Forbidden Magics opened and rested at the inscription: To my beloved Luna…
“Why did you change the names, sister? At first, I was so happy to be back alongside you that I barely thought about it. Now I can do nought but wonder what it means that I was removed from history entirely.”
“We talked about this,” Celestia replied without a hint of hesitation. “I couldn’t bear to be reminded of you. You said you liked that idea. You said it brought you comfort to know how much I missed you.”
“It did. It still does, but I can’t understand why you’re hiding it now.”
Celestia untangled herself and stared into Luna’s eyes. “What is it you think I’m hiding?”
Luna let her eyes drift shut again, pushing the world away for a moment as her heart rate rose. “I’m hurting them again, Celestia. I am weak, and they pay the price for that weakness.”
“Luna, you’re not—”
“I am.” Luna took a long, slow breath before continuing. “You are amazing, Celestia. The strength it took to build this world around you today is unfathomable. This”—she opened her eyes to stare at the inscription in the book—“was your moment of weakness, wasn’t it? The one time could not face doing what you thought was right.”
Celestia’s voice dropped to barely more than a whisper. “Sister… Luna, it was too painful. I threw myself into rewriting the book, but I dreaded the emptiness that came after. Somehow I dragged it out by almost a century. I can’t even imagine how I did that.”
“I was wrong to be jealous of your strength,” Luna replied. Her heart beat faster with each passing moment. “I tried to be strong. I tried not to be weak. I tried to be what other ponies wanted me to be. I tried to remember what I wanted to be. Always, I failed. Only in seeing that I was weak have I seen the truth.”
Luna opened her eyes again.
“Show me.”
This time she returned Celestia’s stare with fire her heart could muster. There. A flicker. A moment of doubt. She knew. By all the stars in the night sky, she knew.
“Show me,” Luna repeated firmly. Her magical mane evaporated, leaving only natural, light-blue curls.
Panic shone in Celestia’s eyes, her chest heaving noticeably with deeper breaths. “I-I don’t understand, Luna.” Her voice betrayed little of the emotion borne by the rest of her.
“Liar.” Luna’s voice, too, held steady in spite of her words. “When I was subjugated, you appeared to save Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. You used spells that we forbade many centuries ago. You were afraid, Celestia, and I knew it. Just like I knew I would give anything to protect you. I would have destroyed myself, if I could, to keep you safe—”
“Luna!” Celestia’s voice finally cracked, fear twisting her melodic tones into an uncharacteristic squeal. “Please don’t say such things! I can’t lose you, never again.”
Luna didn’t flinch. “I wanted to save you, but Twilight Sparkle did so instead. I hated her, and for a moment I remembered where Nightmare Moon came from. I hated her because she stood in my way. When she spoke, the words wounded us both, deeply. It is to my shame that they worked because my rage ran deeper than my tormentor’s. In that moment, I hated you, too.”
“Why? Why, Luna? I would give anything to know. Whatever it is, it will be all right. I don’t understand. I want to understand.”
“Liar.” Again, Luna’s voice held only cool, even tones. “You refuse to see what is before you. As did I, until the ponies who believe in me left me no alternative. Now you must see, too. You do not trust me, Celestia.”
Staring, wide-eyed, Celestia’s jaw worked soundlessly a few times before words spilled out. “Luna, how can you say that? I have tried to share everything with you. I have tried to push you to do more, given you space to do less. I have allowed you and your guards to do as you please because I trust—”
“No!” The word hung in the air like a psychic aftershock, but it wasn’t Luna’s magical augmentation that left silence in its wake: it was fury. “You shared everything—trusted me with everything—except the part that mattered!”
“Luna…”
Forcing a deep breath, Luna began again in her quiet voice. “You are strong beyond all measure, my beautiful sister. You are always trying to be strong for me, but every time it means hiding from the part I most desire to see. You changed the names because it hurt you, yet you hide that pain from me. You think that you are doing me a service, just as you did before.”
“Luna…”
“Show me!”
This time, Celestia winced as if hoofed in the gut. This time, Celestia looked away.
“Show me,” Luna repeated, softly as falling snow. Inch by inch, Celestia turned back, a tremble in her eyes and tears rolling down her cheeks. “Now take off the mask, and show me the sister I remember.”
Celestia’s coruscating, multi-coloured mane shrunk back to a regular pink that hadn’t been seen by anypony in centuries. “It hurt, Luna,” she said, her voice quivering. “It hurt so much I thought it might kill me. The Elements, they showed me the prophecy, but a thousand years… it was too long to wait! I had to forget...”
“The wait is over, my beloved sister,” Luna whispered, rising to her haunches and pulling her sister’s head into a tender embrace. Celestia began sobbing gently and pressed herself into her sister’s night-blue coat.
“Everypony, myself included, must look up to the sun and give thanks for it. You hold Equestria together with your virtue, strength, and charisma. You seem to do it so effortlessly, and once I was jealous, but it was never because I wanted our subjects to look at me that way. It was only ever that I wanted you to look at me that way. Be the one to hold up all the ponies of Equestria with your strength, my sister, but let me be the one to hold you up when the sun sets. Trust in me, Celestia. Trust me with that which matters most. Trust me with your pain and sorrow, dear sister, and I will show you that I will love you with all my heart, until all the stars in the night sky have burned to nought but dust.”
Thank you so much for reading! Of any of my works, this one will always mean the most to me, and staying with me for one hundred thousand words is something I appreciate very deeply.
If you would like to read more of this rendition of Luna and her guards, please consider my one-shot, Movements of Fire and Shadow, and my ongoing series of vignettes, I, Paladin. Clicky the pics to go straight to them!
– Scott 'Inquisitor' Mence
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My vacation starts Monday and I'm very tempted to (finally) read this in the free-time I have before TrotCon; if there's one fic on my list I'd like to read without the interruption of work, it'd be this one. Problem is, it doesn't wanna play nice with the other fics when it comes to my reading schedule, which I'm having enough trouble with already. Damn all these 100,000+ word fics littering my queue!
4544277 Does it help if I'm appropriately nervous about the result?
4550685
Mayhaps
If your other stories are any indication of its quality, you have no reason to worry. My goal's to have it done by the end of Tuesday, but I might take longer to really enjoy it. It definitely won't be any sooner, since I can't read nearly as much online as I can with a printed book - it's just too exhausting! I'll definitely have it done before TrotCon, in any case
This was a great read cant wait to read the others
4553165 Sadly, I know that feeling all to well (the teenage bit doesn't make a lot of difference in my experience).
I'm not all that surprised by the typos. I've been over this so many times already, but with it's age and comparatively low quality (by current standards) I never got an external editor to go over it. It's a funny thing to be torn between commitment to readers and unreasonable requests of editors.
On the other hand, I'm not sure that 'purple' is the word you're looking for in your comments. Given my understanding of it, I'm not sure it even could apply to a one-word (albeit open-compound) adjective. It's probably just different implementation, so I'm assuming that I don't know what you meant at this point.
4554665
No, "purple" was definitely the wrong choice there, but I was having a brain fart and couldn't think of what the right word would've been - didn't help that I was being rushed to run an errand - so just went with that in hopes you could guess what I'd meant. Basically, I think appending the "-esque" was unnecessary and not entirely appropriate; "victorious" would've worked, and "vicory pose" is a commonly recognized term
4553852 Thank you! For all the flaws that remain, I'm still very proud of it.
4556217 Yep, that makes more sense. It is kinda what I assumed, but that's been getting me in hot water lately!
Took longer than I'd intended, but I finally finished reading this story! Overall, it was pretty enjoyable. There were more typos and missing words than I would've liked, but while distracting, they never got to the point of being fic ruining. It was more than made up for by the smile that found my face every time I read "leapt" - how sad is it that something which should be ordinary and expected manages to bring me so much happiness?
I'm reminded of another fic of yours, Every Mare Needs Her Stallion. The way characters in both stories think and interact with each other's something I don't entirely "get". Like I said before, though, this may just be because I don't fully understand people in real life either. Seeker was a notable exception
The writing could be a little repetitive sometimes. I suppose there's only so many ways you can describe crying, but that was a little much for me too. Seems every character, especially Rarity, did their fair share of tear shedding, followed by some obligatory nuzzling. This ties in with what I was saying in the previous paragraph, 'cause it was those moments that confused me the most. Heh, maybe that's my problem; I just don't understand women! It's a wonder they make up most of my friends
So many stories, so little time. I finally finished Shades of Grey, and I've found I really enjoyed the story portions which were from Rarity's viewpoint. Revealing insight into her character which she's not quite brave enough to show.
The interaction with the OC involvement was, while at the center of the plot, was not the center of the -story-, which is something that you've pulled off right without falling into the same trap many authors have. Quite well done.
Thank you for finishing it so that I could read it.
4568038 Okay. Thanks for calling out the number of typos and such. Now that I'm feeling better, I've been through and corrected a lot more than I'd hoped to be able to find. Ces't la vie.
Funny you should mention Seeker, though. His characterisation (in the epilogue) was literally the last addition to the re-write, since I wanted to have Luna more viscerally challenged towards the end. Of all things, that was the one character I was worried readers might not 'get', so you'll appreciate the irony. Of course, he's also the one character that gets the most direct characterisation as well, since he's been coached by Holly on how to express himself properly (thus providing a counterbalance to the Luna/Thunderer relationship). I'd be interested to hear whether you think that might be why, or if it was just his personality that struck a chord.
Interesting that you should bring up the crying, too. Having just re-read for proofing, I'd say that not many characters cry at all, but Rarity cries a lot – with some fairly justifiable reasons: feeling is healing. Twilight gets a bit watery at the start of act II, which is quickly attended to by Celestia (meant as a high-functioning parallel to Luna and Rarity's dysfunctional interactions). Similarly, Luna cries exactly once (exactly in the middle of the story, as if I'd planned it out or something!) in a scene that gives context to Rarity's internal struggle by presenting a middle ground: Luna is partially open about it, because while she physically hides away, all of her guards know exactly what's going on so she gets to feel like she isn't alone with it. And, of course, Stormcloud cries once when he meets Luna for the first time since awakening.
Not that I mean to explicitly say you're wrong or anything, there is definitely a large dose of crying; I'm just very interested in how you got that feeling from it.
It does prompt me to ask only semi-tongue-in-cheek, though: How is your relationship with your mother?
See. Can't stop being philosopher for a second...
-Scott
4611676 Sorry for the delay in reply, and thank you!
Keeping Stormcloud to a background role so that events could transpire around him seems to be one of the things that gets most positively commented on. Believe me when I say I understand the pull of wanting to do more with background OCs, but in this case it I had to keep a tight leash on Luna's guards. They had to be real enough to lend context to Luna's life, yet stay far enough back to let the actual story play out. I'm pretty happy with the balance I ended up with, but they won't be forgotten anytime soon. Hell, I can even tell you who their VA's are when I'm running their lines through my head... especially Thunderer.
In fact, you might find two of them making a cameo appearance in someone else's fic over the next few weeks...
-Scott
4774159
Yeah, I didn't exactly keep a tally on that sort of thing. I guess Rarity cried enough for everyone, so I just needed a couple other characters to cry at least once to get the general feeling that everyone cried at some point. I get really uncomfortable when people cry in real life, so maybe I just have a low tolerance for it
Not sure why you'd ask about my mom, but my relationship with her's pretty good. Actually, it seems almost everyone I know in real life has a sour relationship with their mothers, especially my female friends. Only issue I really have with mine is she doesn't believe I'm gay
I'm trying to remember my impression of Seeker, but it's been several weeks and my brain's occupied by wargaming history at the moment (you should check out Playing at the World, by the way), so I'm having some trouble. What you said about direct characterization and how he expresses himself sounds about right. I don't recall ever asking why he'd act or react in some way like I would with some of the others
Oh, almost forgot, your stories came up in a conversation with Present Perfect at TrotCon. He brought up your philosophy regarding the author's relationship to their readers — how they should respect their intelligence enough to piece together information themselves rather than spelling everything out for them (apologies if I've butchered that somehow). It's a good idea, and one I agree with, but I believe he felt (and apologies to Present if I'm remembering this incorrectly) that you sometimes go too far in the other direction, to the point of obfuscation. I'm surprised I didn't consider that as the source of the problem before, but it sounds about right, and it'd be a pretty easy mistake to make thanks to authorial privilege. Just to clarify, the philosophy's great, it's more a matter of execution
Jesus, I need to expand my vocabulary! All that repetition probably makes me come across as a robot or something
4777788 Aha. Well, the question does have a purpose, albeit an oblique one. You see, the quality of the relationship between a child and mother and/or father go a long way towards setting up certain skills integral to human functionality. Given the massive prevalence of missing fathers in the western world (about 1 in 3 families in the U.S., currently have wholly- or partially-absent fathers), and the importance of fathers in the development of confidence and empathy, it is more frequently the relationship with the mother that distinguishes the average child's emotional well-being these days.
Now, I'm just shooting the breeze here because this still is massively interesting to me, but by-the-numbers I would feel safe with the assumption that, while you would likely describe the relationship with your mother as loving, there would be a number of discernible patterns of behaviour that fall short of the kind of deep and meaningful relationship that most of us would like the word 'love' to mean (if we were to compare those behaviours to a romantic partner, for example). Commonly, this represents a sense of false duty and indebtedness (I'm sure there must be an easier way to word that) that is more prevalent than the sense of genuine emotional connection – again, pretty much the norm for the western world. This often leads to a sense of diminished personal value and drive, whereas missing or distant fathers (including fathers who themselves have an incomplete emotional experience to pass on to children) tend to promote poor empathy and self-control – including increased propensity for violence. This is because it is the common (at least historic) role of the father to be forthright and disciplined when it comes to understanding and dealing with both our own emotions and those of others. So again, by the numbers, the little things you have described lend themselves to an intermediate to low degree of fathering – anything from a present post-divorce father to a sporadic one to a present but emotionally unavailable one.
The bottom line is that much of modern parenting is based on the assumption that children will love and respect their parents, while modern society allows for holding them to account for their actions – almost certainly why so many of your friends have these 'sour' relations with their own mothers. Add to this that somewhere along the line we incorrectly assumed as a culture that it was mothers who taught empathy and you have a recipe for the mess you see around you in the world to day (remember a while ago I talked about how pink was a boys colour a little over a century ago, because men were considered the emotional and passionate gender). Rising violence, lowering empathy, more dependence on materialism and escapism.
It all goes together like Lego bricks, if you know where to look.
Of course, in reality the variables are too many and varied to make actual guesses from the information available – I'm just painting in generalities. Still, you'd be staggered at how many people such a description covers, I imagine.
As for my philosophy on stories and Present Perfect's comments, it sounds like you have both positions about right. And in a way, he's right, except for that fact that it's a continuum. There is no 'correct' position on the spectrum, and I have never shied away from accepting that I run at quite an extreme end of it. 37, high IQ (130-ish last time it was tested), aptitude (or perhaps merely preference: I don't mean it as any particular claim) for critical and philosophical thinking, and an interest in psychology and child development – I've just no interest in toning it down much because I don't find simpler things very interesting to read, either. I just wont claim it's any more 'right' the PP's position or deny that there is a certain kind of elitism involved.
That said, I'm not saying that the goal wouldn't be two write at that higher level and have it understandable at a lower level – simplifying is the greatest achievement of any science or art – but I'd rather fail at having it understandable than fail to include the kind of depth that I want to write at.
And for what it's worth, it's taken me seven years of therapy and three years studying developmental philosophy to get to where I am. My empathy was as shot-through as anyone else's when I started this journey, but at least I have the perspective to understand that it's equal parts learning a new skills and unlearning an old, detrimental ones.
-M
4781428
Not really. I've come to expect that sort of thing by this point in my life
As for the mother/father relationship deal, my parents divorced when I was about three. I was never close to my dad, and he died just before I turned 18, so that's never gonna change, but I was never worried about that anyway. I do have some of the problems you mentioned, but I don't feel like empathy itself has ever been much of an issue, though much of what I experience might be more correctly described as sympathy (empathy would require some actual life experience, which I tend to avoid)
Can't be too objective about my relationship with my mom, but I suppose we could be closer. We were when I was younger, but now it's more like I'm used to her. It's like when you're in a romantic relationship with someone, but have moved past the earlier phases of infatuation and are more relaxed around them, but sometimes a little too much and almost take them for granted, though you still care about them and aren't merely maintaining the relationship for convenience or to spare their feelings
I'm curious, when you read, is part of the fun for you trying to figure out the characters like some kind of puzzle? I was just thinking that could explain the differences between our different positions. I know I don't like having the author explain things which I already know, but I also don't want to put any real work into figuring it out either. I can see how that sort of thing would be fun, but it's not really why I read
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Not exactly. I mean, from what I've already said, I'm sure it's no great surprise if I say that people aren't really complicated when you can see what I see. In fact, people are so simple that they constantly reject the notion of simplicity because it's easier to hide trauma and neuroses behind a screen of perceived complexity. No, people are simple and situations are complex. So you're right in a sense, but it's more about how the people interact with their environment, and it doesn't have to be a puzzle so much as it has to fit.
I'm perfectly fine if a character does something completely unexpected – unprecedented, even – as long as there is space to wonder why that character did that thing, and whether it is part of the story somehow. It can be the most obvious thing in the world and still be a great story; the engagement simply comes from putting the pieces together myself.
This touches on something I was talking about yesterday:
There are two 'zones' of information when I'm reading a story: core information and peripheral information. Core information is stuff that I need for the story to make sense and fit together, peripheral information is everything else that lends context to the core information, but is, in and of itself, not requiring of justification.
Thing is, core information is not what is in the story that I need to know, but what I need to know for the story to function. Much of it is never actually stated, but if it is to be assumed then you can't do anything that contradicts the basis of that assumption. If your main character gets angry about something, I need to either have an implied reason for it, or be left free to make my own assumptions about why that might be. Authors who write well-conceived characters will know exactly why the character was angry, and thus, even if it's never mentioned, will not write anything that makes the character seem self-contradictory – unless that incorrectly-perceived contradiction is a feature of the story, of course. But a minor character who merely provides context for the story can act in self-contradictory way and get away with it because it's peripheral information. You don't have to explain why a bully is a bully if it isn't an important character, but your main character is sweetness and light one minute and bullies someone the next, there'd better be a damned good explanation for it.
But it doesn't need to be particularly deep. One of my current favourite movies, Pacific Rim, epitomises this quite well. It has some of the most brain dead abuses of logic, physics, and science ever to grace the big screen, but I don't care because it's all peripheral information. The story is about the characters struggling together, and those characters are entirely believable at every step. Chuck Hanson is a perfect example, and gives the main protagonist grief from the first moment they lay eyes on each other. The moment he comes out and says 'It's mediocre pilots like you that brought the Jager program down' (Jager=giant anime-style twin-pilot robot), the dots connect without any additional prompting: the father-and-son crew of Striker Eureka have utterly contradictory views on the protagonists last battle. Hurc Hanson, the father, remembers that Raleigh Becket is one of only two pilots ever to get a successful kill solo, whereas Chuck Hanson only sees the guy who disobeyed orders, got his co-pilot killed, and barely survived with a critically damaged Jager. The moment he speaks, that three way relationship is clear as day, and in the very same conversation, they even touch on Hurc's uncertainty at the the quality of his fathering, his lack of empathy, and the lack of a mother in the family. It's a near-perfect show-vs-tell moment. These characters all fit.
Later, each of these assumptions gets a moment of spotlight, including Chuck forgetting his prior judgements the moment Raleigh pilots Gipsy Danger to save his sorry ass from a fight that goes badly – contradictory on the surface, but a very human response to stress. Later, Martial Pentecost says to Chuck, "Well, you're easy. You're an egotistical jerk with daddy issues. A simple puzzle I solved on day one." And you know he's right because every facet of the character stacks up with that assessment. No amount of the retarded techno-babble in the film brings it down for me because it's superfluous information next to the challenges of the very human characters the story follows. The action is silly but fun while the emotions are serious and consistent, but flip that around and I can't stay interested.
(I won't say much as most people won't have seen it, but I saw Guardians of the Galaxy last night and it manages to blur the line between silly and serious emotions near-perfectly – for example, a CGI sentient raccoon gets more emotional depth in one scene of drunken ranting than some characters get in whole films)
In the same vein, you can have major characters act inconsistently and have that inconsistency raised as part of the story and never even have that inconsistency answered. What that does is leave me in a position to wonder but without trying to figure out if the character even makes sense. It makes allowances for the contradictions so that I don't waste time getting mired in things that aren't supposed to make sense. I think this delineates the difference between a puzzle being okay (preferred, even, but never necessary), but confusion being a deal-breaker.
And to be honest, I think you've done a great job of putting a finger on that. I mean, you said yourself that you enjoyed both this and Every Mare Needs Her Stallion but didn't 'get' some of the motivations. So while obviously you didn't get as much out of them as you might have, and that's sub-optimal, that's implicitly also saying that none of those actions were contradictory to the point of being nonsense. Some, however, have been very pro-active in saying that the characters in 'Mare don't act 'correctly', meaning that I either have something wrong or I'm pulling on assumptions that are not resonating with certain readers. This is where I mean that PP is partially right: if a writers goal is to write for his audience, then the writing is at fault to some degree. For me, however, unless there is some demonstrable flaw in the character's behaviour, then that feedback is merely one of opinion and not critical. I'm totally fine with those people getting it, because I'd rather have someone ask why than simplify what I consider to be consistent characterisations.
So no, I don't need characters to be a puzzle, though I will usually enjoy pondering such a puzzle. But to me, inconsistent or superficial characterisation is as freaky and a story were gravity suddenly doesn't exist for a scene and every character continues as if it's completely normal. We've all experienced gravity enough to know that it doesn't just suddenly switch off without explanation, and I know enough psychology/philosophy to feel the same about character motivations. Since most people don't know a damn thing about the human experience, it is no surprise that I so rarely agree with others.
5840738 Has it existed somewhere else?
5840794 You mentioned it twice during the narrative. I had interpreted that to mean that it would be significant at some point during the story, but I guess I was reading more into it than what was there.
5850690 Hmm. The name definitely doesn't crop[ up twice (I even Ctrl+f'd to make sure I wasn't going scatty), but you can be sure you'll see a couple of these titles pop up again!
5851781 I could have sworn she was reading a copy of the book in chapter one or two, but you are right. I may have read the chapter twice (it took me a couple days to read through this) and assumed that since Stormchaser would likely qualify as a magical abomination, that it had more significance than it turned out to have.
7102328 Thanks. It's definitely on of the more profound statements I very intentionally put in that people seemed to get more often than not. It's been my experience that the more general anxiety a person has, the more they respond positively to people who can explain in increasing detail why they react to something the way that they do. You can tell someone you love them, and that's great, but if you can explain exactly why, they have a much higher chance of being able to believe it.
As for Rarity, the general ideas was to have all the arrows pointing in the same direction. There is a significantly less subtle reference to why in the denouncement, but overall it has been proven that this approach hasn't really been successful. Mostly, I think this is because people don't see Rarity's core drive in the way that I do, and I failed to fully account for that, so rather that spoil any more than might be absolutely necessary, I'll simply tell you what I see in Rarity and see if that starts to pull the tapestry a little tighter:
I'd like to think that the first chapter quickly establishes this mental whiplash. Then end of the very first scene ends thusly:
Yet the next one starts:
Thinking she is a good friend isn't enough; she absolutely must prove it for it to have lasting value. When Luna enters her boudoir in chapter 4, their interaction carries a lot of vulnerability on both sides. I'm not sure people who don't experience that regularly appreciate how much of a magnetic trait it is – another thing I have probably failed to present properly to the story's detriment.
7103206 Huh, strangely didn't get a notification for your reply. Maybe because you replied in a different chapter? Anyway...
Is that a "being in control of the situation" thing or some need to verify if the emotions of the other person are plausible from a rational point of view? I remember being asked such questions, but they were really hard to answer because unfortunately my brain didn't come with a manual, either.
I'm not completely unfamiliar with your Rarity (from Every Mare needs her Stallion), and I think you portrayed her anxiety and need for external validation well.
About the scene in chapter 4: I reread it, and I certainly see the vulnerability there, but it really didn't strike me as remarkable when I read it first. Taking the personalities of the two characters and their lack of previous relationship into account, though, I suppose it is. Also, Luna's words about wanting to feel useful serve as a good connection to how Rarity felt during the Mane 6's previous adventure.
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My understanding is that clarity cuts through doubt. Anxiety is about doubting a positive outcome; removing any space for doubt helps to ease it. In that respect, yes, I believe it's the same as how some people becomes control freaks by trying to account and correct for everything that could go wrong. If they can find room for a doubt, they'll experience it, thus the explanation is more about proving what is true and more about minimising ways it can be distorted, misinterpreted, or just misunderstood.
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I think this did a lot for my understanding of anxiety. Thanks!
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Just keep the question in mind. The answer is coming :)