The air was primed to ignite from the tension in the air as Twilight and her friends gathered around the Cutie Map. Bone Marrow was also present, but the other ponies stood well away from him.
Starlight Glimmer pointed to a spot on the map of Equestria and the surrounding lands. "Here should be the one place in the planet where Bone Marrow can't hurt anypony. The Crystal Empire."
Bone hummed. It made sense, seeing as crystal ponies weren't affected by his magic. "There's one problem with that, Starlight. There are ponies there. I don't want to be anywhere close to anyone else until I can get myself under control."
"Yeah, because you work so well unsupervised." Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. "We can't let you wander around all of Equis, Bone Marrow. You're too dangerous for that."
The young necromancer dipped his head, letting his hood shield his face from the others. 'She reminds me of Celestia...'
"A better place to send him, I think, would be the old hive of Queen Chrysalis." Twilight pointed to the spot on the map. "Since the reformed changelings have moved in near Ponyville, they aren't using their old home anymore. Without the changelings there, their hive doesn't have the same magic that it used to when all of us were last there."
"The shifting walls?" Rarity shuddered at the memory. "I don't know if that was worse, or the echoes of chittering."
"The point is that there won't be anypony there for Bone Marrow to run into." Twilight continued her idea. "Aside from Appleoosa which is way outside of walking distance."
"You want to put him near Braeburn?" Pinkie Pie put her hooves on the edge of the cutie map. "The buffalo, too?"
The alicorn's lip scrunched. "Eh... right. Sorry Pinkie, it's been a long while since we were there last."
"Maybe we could go visit them?" The party pony was trying her best to avoid thinking about the recent deaths in Ponyville; especially the Cakes.
Bone Marrow continued to sit quietly and listen as he warred with the voices in his head that whispered hideous things to him.
Fluttershy's ears perked up and she looked towards one of the large double-doors that lead into the room. "I think somepony is coming!"
Sure enough, the doors opened to reveal not one, but two alicorn princesses. Celestia and Luna had arrived, along with a few members of the royal guard.
Bone Marrow's fur stood on end and he bristled with anger from seeing the pony who he had once looked up to. The Princess that had betrayed him and who had frozen him in stone for a thousand years. Cold fog radiated from his body and ice began to form at his hooves, but still, he restrained himself.
After Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had been brought up to speed on everything that had happened, Celestia told her guards to leave the room and close the doors behind them.
She shook her head as the doors closed. "Bone Marrow?"
The colt's glowing blue eyes looked up, shrouded by his hood.
The other ponies were very interested in what Princess Celestia would say as they waited with held breath.
The Alicorn's pause was long as she marshaled her thoughts. "I, Princess Celestia of the nation of Equestria, hereby banish you from these lands. You are exiled from this moment on, and you are never to return on penalty of death by volcano."
Twilight and her friends gasped. They'd never heard such a harsh punishment before, nor would they have ever expected those words to have come from the kind-hearted mother-figure that they had all come to know and appreciate.
"Sister, you--" Luna caught herself in her outburst, swallowing her protest and clearing her throat. There were things that were befitting of a Princess, and disputing a ruling right in front of everypony was not the correct thing to do at any point. Instead, she looked to Bone Marrow and nodded. "I second the decree."
Twilight was uncertain if she was included in this banishment process, but when the two Princesses looked expectantly at her, she knew what she had to do. "As witness to this banishment, you, Bone Marrow, have one week to leave the borders of Equestria."
Bone Marrow had remained silent through all of this, and though he seethed from being in the presence of Celestia, he knew an opportunity when he saw it. 'Banishment? I wanted to leave Equestria anyway!' The young Necromancer nodded, turned, and quickly walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him and leaving frost on the handle.
The ponies looked expectantly to Princess Celestia for answers or some kind of explanation as to why she had been so hasty and direct with her verdict.
Celestia waited a few more moments for Bone Marrow to fully leave down the hallway before she spoke. "I... have some explaining to do."
"I'll say!" Came a voice from the walls that everypony was very familiar with. The Chimera-like head of Discord phased up from the Cutie Map along with the rest of his body. "Stabbing a colt in the back after he saved Equestria, then banishing him a thousand years later?" Discord sucked air through his teeth. "That's harsh, Princess."
"He nearly destroyed Ponyville!" Rainbow Dash loudly pointed out.
"Yes, yes, a single town and miles of countryside were turned to ash and swamp." He held up two of his fingers, prepared to snap. "It was interesting to see how all of you reacted to him, though. Worse than Tirek, I believe you said?"
With a snap and a flash of white light... nothing really seemed to happen.
"Discord, what did you do?" Luna didn't trust the Spirit of Chaos for a second.
"It's rewind time, everypony." Discord chuckled to himself as reality began to distort.
Canterlot, One Thousand Years Ago...
Snow and ash fell from the sky like a morbid winter's night. The cobblestone streets of Canterlot were paved with blood, ice and the bodies of so many griffons, ponies, minotaur and others that it was hard to navigate. Spells of immense destruction were hurled in the distance and the cries of agony sounded out like the notes to a morbid musician's final piece.
Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Starlight Glimmer, Celestia and Luna all stood just a few steps above this bloody battleground with Discord laying on a shimmering lawn chair nearby. Each were ghostly in their appearance, both transparent and ethereal.
The ponies aside from Celestia and Luna huddled together, not being accustomed to the level of violence on display. Princess Celestia became stony-faced, and Luna's eyes widened at the carnage.
"You like the view?" Discord munched on some popcorn that he had tossed into his draconic mouth. "I got to see everything a few thousand years ago from my comfortable little stone prison in your garden, Princess."
"Why have you brought us here, Discord?" Celestia's eyes narrowed at the floating Draconequis.
"He should be coming around the corner any--" Discord paused and pointed at a rapidly approaching icy blur in the distance. "There he is!"
The blur zipped past, leaving a trail of snow and ice in his wake.
"That would be Bone Marrow, fillies. Up until this point, he's been doing fairly well with all of the maddening power in his hooves." This elicited a little chuckle from Discord. "Very soon, however, he is about to experience the worst day of his life."
The view of the ponies shifted to the Canterlot Palace. There, on the golden-trimmed steps, was an important scene unfolding right before everypony's eyes.
"Scenic!" Bone Marrow shouted with a smile on his face. He was surrounded by a maelstrom of icy wind and the ground froze like an iceberg underneath his hooves.
"Bone, look around you!" A filly very similar in appearance to Rainbow Dash called out, though her mane and tail were more of a soft purple in color. "Look what's happening to you!"
Bone Marrow shook his head, "It doesn't matter any more Scenic, you're alive! If you stay with me, I can keep you alive long enough so we can find your Soul Jar together!"
"Find my Soul Jar?" Scenic's eyes shot open, "Oh no!"
"It's fine, Scenic! We can find it together!"
The group would watch, almost as if in slow motion, the practiced descent of a bat pony with a dagger in his mouth. The stallion was aiming directly for Scenic's heart.
Fluttershy covered her eyes with her hooves, being unable to watch. Applejack used her stetson as a kind of screen to block out what she knew was coming. Rarity looked on with one eye open, Rainbow Dash's eyes were wide with the sudden realization of what was going to happen, and Twilight grimaced as she braced for the inevitable clash.
Bone Marrow saw only too late as the Bat Pony swooped towards Scenic. His heart nearly stopped as the Stallion collided with his friend, sending both ponies tumbling down the steps of the palace in a mass of feathers and blood and down onto the cobblestone streets.
"No!" Bone shouted, and time paused.
The munching of Discord's popcorn could be heard again. "Did you catch that bit?" Reality distorted a bit and rewound to the moment that the bat pony's dagger plunged into Scenic's heart. Discord held his lion-hand to his ears. "That's the sound of a pony's mind breaking."
Celestia was barring her teeth at the sight. "I already know this, Discord. I was there!"
Discord held up a claw. "Ah-ah, you weren't here. You saw the aftermath of this."
"What's your point?" Rainbow Dash scowled. "Why show us any of this?"
Discord skipped past the brutal slaying of the Bat Pony that had killed Scenic and showed Bone Marrow desperately trying to heal the wounds of his friend to no success. Soon after, time skipped forward yet again to a point that Celestia would be familiar with.
"This is what I wanted to show you, Princess." He tossed a single piece of popcorn onto the streets of Canterlot where Bone Marrow, Celestia, and a stallion were at a stand off. "After you chopped off Bone Marrow's head, you went on a rant about who the real villain was while he was coming back to life."
Twilight was both disgusted and fascinated by what she saw, though she stowed the analytical and scientific part of her mind away for the moment as she focused on the things happening in front of her.
"Yes, I realize that, Discord." Celestia looked to her sister to find her opinion, but Luna was more interested in the scene in front of her. By this point in time, she had been banished to the moon and was privy to none of this information.
"Did you ever speak with Bone Marrow about what happened while he was dead?" Discord jabbed a thumb in the direction of the paused standoff below the group. "Did you speak with him the moment he was unfrozen from stone?"
Celestia was supremely suspicious. This seemed a bit out of character for a Spirit of Chaos to be lecturing her about anything, let alone this.
Discord grinned. "I love seeing that face on you, Tia." He then waved a dismissive hand and time progressed to where Bone Marrow was being sealed in stone by the rainbow-energies of the Elements of Harmony. "You want to know what the point of this is?"
Time paused and Discord snapped his fingers, bringing everypony to the tomb that Bone Marrow had been sealed away in. Stone chipped away as Twilight and Rainbow Dash saw themselves carefully exploring the icy-cold underground where they had originally found the necromancer.
"My point is that you don't learn, Celestia." He cracked his knuckles and dusted his hands. "You might not wage wars anymore, but you control your ponies all the same. Not through fear or some kind of religious zeal, but through friendship and harmony. Really, how hard would it have been for you to leave a golden plate with a detailed apology note on the wall of the hole you stuffed your shame into?" He pointed over his shoulder at the frozen scene of Bone Marrow's return. "Even just that teeny tiny little bit would've been enough."
"Enough for what?" Applejack set her stetson back onto her head, seeing as the horrifying past had been put on hold for now.
Discord grumbled and crossed his arms, his body slithering over to the group as he rested his head on top of Applejack's hat. "I really have to spell it out for you? Bah, you were all a lot more fun in the maze if I recall." He lifted his head and cleared his throat. "I, the Spirit of Chaos, find your lack of change disturbing. In my own way, I want to see you change sometime in the next, oh I don't know, few months of time?"
"I'm not here to entertain you, Discord." Celestia was more than done with the Draconequis' shenanigans.
"Oh no, I wouldn't dare dream of you entertaining me. Guess how the last thousand years felt while conscious? Yikes. Not even so much as an afternoon hello!"
Starlight was feeling very jealous about the fact that Discord could so casually travel through time, and so precisely, too!
"How do you want to see Princess Celestia change, and more importantly, why?" Twilight was having a bit of difficulty wrapping her head around the thought process of the Spirit of Chaos.
"Also, how come we were able to beat you if you can meddle with all of this time stuff?" Applejack helpfully pointed out.
Discord patted the apple farmer on the head. "I can't defeat you in every timeline, can I? That would be far too boring and predictable of me." He then swiped Applejack's hat and wore it on one of his ears. "I don't really care how Celestia changes. The reason I want her to change is that if she doesn't, we're all going to get a new necromancer in the future that is going to do far worse things than simply destroy miles of land and damage a village or two."
He swiped his hand across time itself to glimpse and image of the far future. A future where the world was ice and death, where no living thing walked, and where there was only two glowing lights in the darkness.
A snap of his fingers later, and the group returned to Twilight's crystal treehouse-castle as if they'd never left. It took a moment for everypony to get reoriented and for their minds to stop spinning.
"W-wait, let me get this straight." Rainbow Dash placed her hooves on the Cutie Map. "You want to save the world by having Princess Celestia do things differently?"
Discord shrugged. "It's up to the Princess, really. How she goes about changing is no concern of mine, though it's probably a big concern for all of you." He then looked to Celestia with a smirk on his face. "Well then, Tia, what will it be?"
Bone Marrow had made good on his banishment. He had hurled himself into his running and left behind a trail of ice and hoof-prints in his wake. Where he would go was up to him, what he would do with himself was his choice, and he had a map thanks to one of the dutiful Royal Guard on his way out of the castle in Ponyville.
There was one stop that he needed to make before he did anything else, however. He wanted to see if his old home town of Scoria had been rebuilt, or at the very least if there was even a single piece of it left. Since it had been over a thousand years since he saw the scorched remains of his home, he very much doubted it.
Once he had someplace private, even if it was the same mines that he had been lost in for months, he would bring back his friend. He needed to see Scenic Sights after everything that had happened and he wouldn't forgive himself until he kept his promise. With the void happily gnawing on the little bits of sanity that he had left, Bone smirked at the morbid thought of losing himself before he would be able to figure out how resurrection worked. Would he just scream at the sun every time he saw it, eventually going blind?
Bone shook his head. This wasn't the time to get distracted and he'd managed to leave Equestria without being thrown into a volcano. Things were looking up, aside from his blunder with the Hydra. One of his cardinal rules that he'd forgotten returned to his mind. Expect the Unexpected.
Now, alone and on his own in a world he had no familiarity with, he needed at least one thing to keep him sane. Scenic could be that thing, but he worried that he'd only be pulling yet another pony into the mess that was his unsortable life. He could bring back Toothpick, that was clear, but on the other hoof, Toothpick's advice had gotten him into this mess in the first place.
'Well, that's not exactly fair. I just followed the advice of a reanimated skeletal bird without even thinking it through first.' Bone shook his head. 'Does that make me dumber than a bag of bones? Really?' He sighed at himself. 'I need to think more, that's for certain.'
"So... are we just going to let Bone Marrow wander around the world?" Starlight spoke up when Celestia, Luna and Discord had left. "That seems like a bad idea no matter how it's put."
Twilight tapped her hoof on the Cutie Map. "We still have his cutie mark showing up here, so we'll have an idea of where he's heading."
"But that doesn't tell us what he's doing, does it?" Starlight's lip scrunched with uncertainty as she looked at the map. "I don't like that Celestia was quick to banish Bone Marrow..."
Twilight shook her head. "I don't either, but he didn't seem to be too bothered by it."
"Why would he be bothered?" Rainbow Dash chimed in. "He got a get out of jail free card from it!"
"I don't think that's how it works, Rainbow." Applejack set her hat down next to her. "He can't come back to Equestria, right? That's a pretty terrible punishment if you ask me."
"Oh yeah, and why is that?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow at her friend.
"Well, um, don't you remember what the world is like outside of Equestria?" Fluttershy shifted the Cutie Map's focus away from the Raven Skull that noted Bone Marrow. Everywhere outside of Equestria was a desert wasteland or an icy wasteland. "There's really nopony else around that's doing well. Remember when we met Capper?"
The others blinked at Fluttershy.
"He was the cat-person that stood on two legs and who had his coat fixed by Rarity?"
Realization dawned on the group and Rarity spoke up. "We should really send him a letter, shouldn't we?"
"Anyway," Fluttershy refocused, "Anyplace that isn't Equestria is either sand, ice or lava. I'm... I'm worried that being Banished might have been a worse sentence than death."
Starlight grimaced in sympathy. The worst punishment that she'd received was training in how to be friendly to other ponies. Then a fact came to mind. "I don't think Bone Marrow can die unless it's by lava, so as long as he stays out of the Dragon Lands, he'll be alright."
Fluttershy set her hooves on the crystal floor. "It still seems like a harsh punishment; especially after what happened to him in Canterlot all those years ago."
Rainbow shook her head. "He killed our friends, Fluttershy. Our family. I can't forgive something like that no matter what a pony's life was like before they met us."
She was silent after that, as she couldn't help but agree with Rainbow's sentiment even if she was unable to bring voice to her thoughts.
Was Worth the wait, Great Work! It Really Shows the struggle in all characters.
ITS UN-ALIVEEE!!! Glad to see you didn't definitively gave up on this one
Good chapter
Kind of a shame that Luna didn’t argue her point all for propriety’s sake amongst a group who are intimately familiar with the royalty.
Still not happy that they no idea what a Tyrant she was and how it caused her Sister to go mad as she was used as a weapon.
Correction. He scared the creatures of Everfree so much they came out of the forest to the only town next to Everfree. The only pony Bone killed was himself. Although result is the same, it was never his goal to kill anypony. If the CMCs who caused the Everfree's creatures to come out and hurt ponies, can you not forgive them? Plus, if my memory served me right, Snip and Snail almost did it when the Trixie came to town. Would they really be forgiven if somepony actually died back then?
For Celestia, I have a feeling that she is trying to hide her own past mistake. The proof was that she clearly did not want to deal with him herself. No talk to clear thing out whatsoever, and just let others handle him for her and hope it would work out.
Worth the wait. Some nice character struggle, good point's from Discord no less, and a quite open chapter end... I wonder which way Bone is heading?
Guess we'll see it eventually.
I was right ! This was basically what I wrote in my comment last story (but I put Luna as the one saying it, and used different phrasing). Also, new chapter! Thanks Queen Sanguine Dreams!
A bit sad that Luna gave in that easily. Especially since she seems to argue against her sister in public in the show a bit, I think... was it because it was never contradicting something that wasn't directly related to her?
You hear that Celestia? Is the shame corroding your innards
Ohh boy Discord, you really enjoyed that old devil, however he's completely right. Loving how he pointed the hipocrisy
I can also imagine the argument in the palace between Celestia and Luna, Luna ain't pleased by the outcome at all.
Don't give on this story! Its amazing!
I think I'm done here at least if it continues more with the whole Celestia thing.
It's the same low hanging fruit that so many stories aim for.
Blame and demonize Celestia to make whoever the author wants to look better and it's really tiresome at this point.
Despite how uncomfortable the last chapter made me feel because of the death of characters I knew it removed some of that moral high ground which could have created an interesting dynamic but it feels like we just doubled down on "everything has to be Celestia's fault".
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Bone Marrow killed a bunch of people and that's a real roundabout way to make him look innocent.
Lovely chapter, worth the wait indeed.
You know, Starlight Glimmers never forget how to remove cutie marks. The things that dictate one’s destiny and what they will be good at for the rest of their life. So it is a possibility that if they go after Bone Marrow they could use this to make him powerless, to remove his necromancer destiny and give (force) him into a normal life; or dungeon.
Just a little something to remember.
well, this stinks of self fulfilling prophecy, have a like!
You know, I don’t think I will ever grow tired of this story. You always seem to find just the right twists to throw in at the right times, while not at all over doing them.
This updates are always well worth whatever wait, and I look forward to the next one.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DWYqCi6o5r5I&ved=2ahUKEwjF9e_7uIzjAhUHwFQKHeAcATAQyCkwAHoECA0QBA&usg=AOvVaw2NSY0J2hEJm58Jf8icWEum
So what, the vision the Elements gave Celestia and her epiphany in the last story mean jack shit now? As for Bone Marrow, what's the point now that he has been put through a situation so that now even Fluttershy of all ponies can't forgive him? If this really is just going to end with Bone living in isolation forever than why not just have the first story end that way? Look, it's clear that I no longer really know where this story is going now but this chapter has undermined whatever anticipation the ending of the first story created and has just left me with nothing to look forward to.
What's really sad about the whole situation is that Celestia, the main six, and Starlight Glimmer keep forgetting that their not just dealing with a very angry moody necromancer, but a traumatized angry moody foal that never wanted this to happen to him at all to begin with.
So, Celestia tried to kick the can down the street, again; but Discord's having none of that this time around.
Also, seems no one ever told Starlight about Zecora's history recall potion, the one that allowed Twilight to see into the distant past as if she had been there, but without actually sending her there. I'm guessing Discord used his own chaos magic fueled variation of that, to do what he did here.
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T'was never really an epiphany, more of an assumption Celestia made. That's the problem with visions of the future, their intended meanings can be hard to pin down at the best of times, and they often seem to lead to self fulfilling prophecies, like what happened here.
As for Fluttershy forgiving Bone Marrow so easily, she is the Element of Kindness in case you forgot, forgiving easily has always been in her nature, and her observable personality in the show.
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Shut it, this isn't your story to write, let Sanny write the story in her direction.
Celestia the all powerful. None can question her judgement, not even her own sibling and former student.
This is bullshit of the highest degree. Why does it matter if it's "proper" or "what you have to do"? It's NOT proper OR necessary to do this. This is a life sentence. This is a pony's life. TWO ponies' lives, even. Over what, a little kid's accident? The little kid being born with the wrong magic? Fuck you, Celestia, and fuck the whorse you rode in on.
No shit. Discord is the new MVP.
Knowing Tia, she's going to choose the end of the world purely out of arrogant spite.
Mane six sans Fluttershy confirmed terrible ponies.
He killed nopony. Other ponies died INDIRECTLY AND UNINTENTIONALLY.
This should have been kind of predictable. The main cast should have realized what Marrow's goal was (Scenic), and they were explicitly told he was still a foal despite his appearance. And they failed on both counts.
Bone Marrow did something that was extremely stupid, and ponies died for it. He's a not-terribly-sane traumatized child, though. He needed way closer supervision, and that should have been obvious. Luna or Twilight should have been with him almost constantly.
I can almost understand Celestia's actions here. It seems that she's gotten lazy. 'I have a problem? Pawn it off on Twilight!'.
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Okay... Wow... Reading stuff like this is almost painful. Did you actually sit down and take the time to read this chapter or did you just casually skim through it? Seriously, context clues, they are important, Please, for the love of all things good in this world, pay a bit more attention next time you read something.
First, I will start by admitting that Celestia's epiphany via the elements seems to have been forgotten, either by the author or perhaps by Celestia herself given that, you know, 1,000 years have passed since she used the elements on him, unless I also missed some sort of context clue about that as well, which, admittedly, I have also done in the past. So don't take anything I say to heart. However, the fact that you would suggest that Bone would live in isolation at the end of the story plus the fact you claim to not actually know where this story is going is what really makes me a little skeptical you actually bothered to read this chapter before commenting, though I could be wrong and you may have somehow simply missed this by mistake or perhaps misinterpreted it.
Specifically pay attention to the area of that quote from the chapter which I bolded for you.
Discord literally spelled it out for you. Either Celestia changes her behavior and fixes her mistakes to some degree or not just Bone, not just Celestia, not just the mane six, not just Ponyville, and not just Equestria dies. Oh no. The entire world dies because of the next necromancer after Bone gets thrown into lava. Get it? Celestia has zero choice but to change like Discord has stated, which means there is a pretty decent chance of a good ending for Bone Marrow. Unless, of course, she doesn't change in which case every one dies because of her self righteousness and arrogance.
So seriously, what do you want from the author? You can not get much more obvious then this when giving context clues about the future of the story unless the author were to outright say, "[Blank] happens, then [Blank] happens, then it turns around when [Blank] happens, then later [Blank] does [Blank] to [Blank] with [Blank], and then [Blank] happens and the story ends." and give away the entire plot of the story. The puzzle pieces are right there in front of you, its the middle of the night and they are waving around a fricking neon sign that says "I'm right here" and are standing underneath a big red glowing arrow pointing directly at them, with fricking runway lights leading to them. You seriously just have to open your eyes and read to find them! Sorry, if that sounded harsh, it's just a little frustrating.
Also, based on the fact Fluttershy was legitimately worried about Bone suggests that she does not actually hate him and, while currently upset and emotionally compromised after losing people she cared about and is thus not thinking quite straight, is in all likely hood capable of forgiving him to some degree, but I digress.
On a somewhat related note, people really need to learn to have a bit more faith in authors they enjoy. Just because you don't know where the story is going at one point or another, does not mean that the author doesn't know where they want the story to go, nor does it mean the story will end up being bad. In fact, personally, I somewhat prefer it in a story when I don't know where it is going because that means it could go somewhere you don't expect which is a lot more fun and exciting to read since it has way more potential to surprise you then an extremely obvious story.
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I also disagree with the assertion made by this comment about Celestia being blamed and demonized. She has made mistakes and is essentially the sole cause for every death that happened in Ponyville because of Bone, since none of it would have happened if she hadn't stabbed him in the back in the first place, but Bone is also partially to blame for quite a bit as well. Let's not pretend like he's entirely innocent, because he's not. They have both made pretty severe mistakes and that is a sign of good story telling. You don't make a character an infallible Mary Sue or Gary Stu, you make your character flawed and you give them room for growth as a character, which this author has quite clearly done in this story and is, again, basically beating you over the head with it from that interaction with Discord where he quite literally states that Celestia will have to change somehow or the world will end, and I believe Bone even being this far into the future already implies in and of itself that he will have to change and grow as a character.
This is called making dynamic characters which is a basic literary technique and has been around for almost as long as stories themselves have existed! If you have ever had an English or Literary class in school this is one of the major topics they discuss. For most stories you want dynamic characters and you don't want static and/or cardboard characters unless its in a very specific context or scenario. The anime "Goblin Slayer" is a good example of using a cardboard character well. He doesn't grow, he doesn't change, and it makes sense for him not to given the context of the show and his past. It would not make nearly as much sense in a story like this and would actually get really fricking boring and somewhat annoying after awhile.
So, where you see Celestia being vilified and demonized, I see a dynamic character in the making that has made mistakes and has not yet had the opportunity to learn or grow from them. That will change as the story goes on and I'm certain we will see the change Discord has hinted at, which means her behavior and personality will change over time to reflect her growth, her descent, or perhaps even some mixture of both depending on what the author chooses to do with her character.
I feel I must reiterate. Leaving room for character growth is just good story telling. As such there should not necessarily be anything wrong or even necessarily cliche with portraying Celestia in this way as long as you do something or go somewhere interesting with said portrayal, which the author seems like they intend to do.
Anyways, my rants about the obvious and literature are over for the moment.
Honestly, I love this story just as much as I loved the first one and your doing an excellent job with it thus far. In my opinion, you don't deserve half the crap people give you about how the characters in this story behave and react. It honestly makes a lot of sense given the context. You are a wonderful author and I certainly hope to read more in the future!
Thanks for the update!
She shows up and simply banishes him. No apology for her betraying him. No trial. He saved her hide, he saved Equestria, and this is how he is repaid. I'd consider what she did here another betrayal. If anything, Discord didn't put NEARLY enough focus on that Celestia is a backstabber. Discord is right; Celestia's motivations never changed, simply her methods. She is still the control freak tyrant that drove her sister mad. She's just kinder about it. Given what happened in the previous story, it sounds as if her crusade with the other races, that the other races never recovered. So, out of sight, out of mind, and damn whoever he comes across as long as they aren't ponies. I wouldn't be surprised if there is long standing hatred out there for her.
Celestia is an idiot here as well. Instead of, oh, I don't know, house arrest, where she can keep an eye on him and keep him away from others, like the Mane 6 were trying to do, she casts him to the rest of the world to deal with. And with everything that happened in Ponyville, she fails to remember or admit SHE IS THE REAL CAUSE. SHE set all of this into motion the moment she stabbed him in the back. She should NOT have ANY right to dish out any punishment when it comes to Bone Marrow. LUNA should have been the one because she is IMPARTIAL. And since Luna simply caved, to be a 'united front,' it sounds like she had reservations, and, once again, Celestia didn't talk about it with her. Just like she always has, it seems.
9703809
I wouldn't call it lazy. It seems more like she's pushing off responsibility because she's afraid of repeating her own mistakes, without properly considering how much of those mistakes were built off of her pushing off earlier responsibilities.
She screwed up horribly with Bone Marrow, and didn't trust herself not to do it again, so she sent Twilight instead. The problem is that not going herself was a larger mistake, just like her refusing to govern Equestria after she led it into a war that she could have prevented.
9703822
The amount of backlash by itself proves that there was something there which made waves in the readers. Could be readers should pay more attention but this is a problem with chapter by chapter storytelling. That chapter basically crashed a LOT of things and radically altered paths the story was going and people mentioned it, some more strongly than others.
In my mind the lesson to be learned here might be that if you plan to do large twists like this then you need to have the following chapter ready almost immediately if not at the same time and NOT have any kind of cliffhangers attached to it. When people read something which agitates them they WILL voice it out in the comments.
Edit:
Well unless you want to be evil about the story progression and get people riled up.
9703822
First, Celestia is not the sole cause of the deaths in Ponyville. That's on Bone Marrow. No one except himself made him do such a recklessly dumb action without telling anyone causing the deaths of multiple people.
Second, you're entire rant misses the entire point I was going for onto something different.
This is just one more story in a lake of stories that goes for the easy route that is making Celestia as inept as possible and the source of everything wrong from major villains to a pothole in a no-name frontier town so that the readers will easily side for whatever character the author desires.
It worked in the first story because of the setting with it being a thousand years in the past, the immediate aftermath of Nightmare Moon, and the previous biases of past natural necromancers.
But then you fast forward a thousand years into the future and Celestia is cast as the giant screw up because it is the low hanging fruit when it comes to these types of stories. This doesn't feel like a unique, creative experience. It feels like one of the many stories that went down the exact same route.
As I said before as uncomfortable as it made me feel to see those deaths it removed the moral high ground creating a potentially interesting twist but then we backtracked on this by having Discord pop up with a terrible "the reason you suck speech" and trying to low-key shame characters for having an understandable emotional reaction in the aftermath of a fatal tragedy.
9703880
The deaths in Ponyville are a tragedy, and Bone Marrow did unwittingly trigger that disaster. However, i do seem to recall a certain episode in the very first season of the show, where two foolish colts intentionally pissed off an Ursa Minor, and then led the damn thing right back to Ponyville, where a pre-alicorn Twilight had to stop it before anyone could be killed.
The residents of Ponyville still criticize Trixie for having 'given them the idea' to do that, through her wild boasting; while Snips and Snails got off with a mild scolding, and it was never brought up around them ever again to my recollection.
Unoriginal or not, it's been an ongoing point in this story from Chapter 1, when Celestia sent Twilight into that tomb, instead of going there herself and facing up to the second biggest regret of her entire life. This story has not yet shown her to be generally incompetent, but this particular situation is very personal, and very complicated; wanting to just kick the can ever further down the street to not have to face up to her mistake is a very human character flaw.
But is he wrong? About Celestia repeating her mistakes i mean.
As for him 'shaming' the others, multiple parties screwed up to bring events to this point, and Discord seems to have decided here that the problem now requires some context; explained with all the grace of a 2x4 to the face, since the subtlety and patience are clearly not working.
Also, this is discord we're talking about, when the shit hits the fan, has he ever been able to resist tastelessly rubbing everyone's faces in it?
Celestia, have you ever tried confronting problems BEFORE they become problems? Banish the kid because you couldn't be bothered to go to ponyville until AFTER he fucks up and accidentally causes a lot more damage than anyone could predict. Congratulations, you have only set in motion more problems than you're fixing because you're too lazy to even so much as warn people and give need/ want to know information to those involved.
In all seriousness keep it up Sanguine, good to see you writing again.
9703967
You're the second person to point out the Ursa Minor...and? There is a sizable amount of people who don't like that and think it is bad that someone else got blamed from two other idiots colts actions. So now when out hero of this story does it and Celestia gets blamed it suddenly becomes ok?
Unoriginal does matter in this case because it's boringly predictable. And hasn't shown her to be incompetent? Have you not been looking at this comment section? It's like looking at a bunch of piranhas waiting for the cow to fall into the river and finally got that chance to tear into Celestia at the first chance to call her out for being "bad".
And I don't care if he's right or wrong. Because the only reason he gets to write the speech is because the story aims to keep Celestia as the bad guy just so the speech can be delivered.
It's even worse that he's trying to rub something in people's face because there is a serious question: Where the hell was he when everyone is dying?
And when the blood has barely finished drying he shows up to start rubbing crap in people's faces.
This chapter is just one more opportunity for the fanfiction community to whip out the Celestia hateboner it's created and start stroking it vigorously.
He really needs to learn a true Reserection spell... XD... I mean, If he could have done that the ponies that died could have came back... But with how his life is at the moment, learning much of anything is difficult for him. I mean he just went from a war, to a land where he trusts no one after being betrayed. And then dies to save his only friend but ends up killing hundreds of ponies... Just picture how bone feels right now? Alone, sad and in pain from having indirectly killed hundreds of lives.... He must be horribly depressed. On top of that getting banished?! Man thats enough to make someone leap into a volcaino........... Wait...
9704011
My issue with this point is that people like you want to hold Bone Marrow solely legally responsible for murder, when characters in the show have been forgiven for doing something just as stupid and dangerous, and with far greater awareness of their own actions than Bone Marrow had after that Hydra ate him.
I never said how the Ursa Minor incident was handled was okay; but it did set a precedent, that foals are not permanently punished for doing dangerous stupid shit. But Bone Marrow is suddenly exempt from this precedent, just because he looks older than he effectively is? Had Twilight not stopped that Ursa Minor, much of Ponyville's population would have been left homeless, seriously injured, or dead; and Snips and Snails knew what they were doing was dangerous, but they did it anyways, and chose to lead the thing into Ponyville, because they believed that Trixie would easily stop the creature (the rest is history).
If you don't like where Sanguine is taking this story, you can always go read something else. But simply lambasting her for her work being "boringly predictable," is not useful criticism, either suggest how you'd have done it differently; or go write your own version.
That's a problem with the audience, not the author. And i said "not generally incompetent," this story has only shown so far that where it concerns Bone Marrow, her judgement is still severely flawed. Due in no small part i suspect from both the shame of her past screw up, and also by her past history with Bone's predecessors; and the probable self doubt that arises from the question of, 'did those other Born Necromancers turn evil, because i drove them into it?'
Where was he during the Wedding? Or the return of the Crystal Empire? Our Town? Starlight's revenge? Crysalis' second takeover attempt proved categorically that he's not omniscient, since he didn't even know Fluttershy had been taken. He could have stopped the Pony of Shadows with a snap of his claw. He was conveniently absent during the Storm King's invasion. And even as all magic in the world was getting hoovered up, we never see him make any attempt to interfere with Cozy Glow's plan, or even just to warn someone, anyone at all.
gona be honest here, I half expected discord to just undo the past 24 hours at the expense of celestia doing something she doesn’t want to, it would have been a cop out but it would have given you a chance to go back and plan out farther in the story so you wouldn’t get stuck
9704093
The massive difference is that people did in fact die and not just a single person but a large scale of people. Not a single person in the show has actually died from any actions.
And it's ridiculous to think that people would just immediately forgive him practically immediately after what happened for this.
So it is VERY fair to hold him responsible for this . Not only that but I specifically said people don't like how Trixie and the Ursa Minor was resolved and think that Snips and Snails should have been held accountable for it.
Second, the comment section exist for the sake of me expressing my opinion on the story and if it's going in a direction I don't like I am free to express that and keeps going in the direction I did in fact say I would leave.
Telling someone who isn't pulling the equivalent of zimmerwald to go away just because they express dislike in what you like might as well be as bad as authors who delete comments criticizing their stories.
Third, no it is a not solely on the audience. It is in fact on both the audience and the authors. This has been something brewing for years ever since people decided to victimize Luna at the cost of blaming Celestia and making her terrible to make Luna look better. People latched on, accepted it, and have proceeded to do this constantly not just with Luna but other characters such as Chrysalis, Sombra, sometimes Discord, and like Bone Marrow, OC characters.
It has become one giant loop of authors presenting her as garbage so another character gets the love regardless of how terrible they are, the audience jumps on her case and then future authors have no reason to move from that because it's easy love.
Lastly, he was in Stone for the Wedding and the Crystal Empire and Starlight's Revenge was back in time. And many people point out to negative degrees on how Discord's absence makes no sense a lot of the time but the one time people are actually dying and Fluttershy is in some actual lethal danger he's no where to be found. I would like to point out this is very soon after Discord met Bone Marrow and even said he was keeping an eye on him.
Pretty good story so far. Glad you are still taking a bit of time to write it for us. ^^
This is really good so far, and I can't wait to read for of it.
Good to have you back, enjoyable as always!
9703458
Thank you for saying that, yes Bone Marrow was directly responsible for the whole Everfree panic all because he couldn't open his mouth and ask for help. Worst still He gave up on a lot of his sanity at the same time. This wasn't the like in the past, where everyone was coming at him. Even if it wasn't though malice, It was death by carelessness.
The only real mistake Celestia is making is not explaining herself to the colt why she turned him to stone, but he already burned that bridge behind him.
9704135
I certainly could have been more clear in my choice of wording. What Bone Marrow did was stupid and reckless, and he does deserve to be punished for reckless endangerment, and multiple counts of manslaughter (ponyslaughter?); but not murder. As others before me have already pointed out, Bone Marrow is a traumatized barely sane child, who everyone around him keeps trying to treat like a deranged criminal, or as a weapon to be used against others. His thousand year stone nap didn't magically grant him the wisdom of an adult, so why do certain people act surprised when his stupid and dangerous mistakes start racking up larger and larger death tolls, when he's almost never given a chance to learn from his mistakes?
It exists to allow all of us to express our opinions, including our opinions of each other's opinions, as long as none of the site rules are violated.
So, you're accusing Sanguine of basing her decision making around chasing easy approval points? Or is it that because you have a problem with an observed long running trend on this website, Sanguine is not permitted to write a story that happens to fall within the outlined parameters of that trend?
I have noticed aspects of this trend you have outlined, though it doesn't bother me. If you're so determined to go on some moral crusade about this site wide issue, then why don't you write a blog post breaking down your grievances with it in detail, and link others to that when bringing it up elsewhere?
It's been too long since i last rewatched the early seasons. So yes, my mistake, he was still trapped in stone and hadn't been reformed yet, during the Wedding and the Crystal Empire's return. Starlight's revenge plot however... he could have stopped Starlight at any point prior to her activating the time travel spell; she did spend most of the season stalking the Mane 6, plotting her revenge, and breaking into the restricted section of the Canterlot Archives.
Overall, his repeated absences during multiple major crisis events (either because the plot demanded it, or because the writers forgot he existed) can be interpreted a variety of ways, good or bad. however, he did establish the precedent with the Plunder Vines incident, and again recently in the second episode of Season 9, that he can and will feign ignorance, weakness, or grievous injury, in order to prod Twilight and co. towards solving the crisis without relying on him to simply snap the problem away.
Given that he almost certainly was watching the disaster as it unfolded, i would suspect that he was fully prepared to intervene the moment Fluttershy would be about to come to harm. But he's certainly no saint, and sometimes he's not quite as clever as he likes to think he is. Still, it's pretty clear to me, that he views this entire situation as Celestia's mess, and he has no interest in cleaning it up for her.
As for him rubbing everyponies noses in the proverbial excrement, i never said he wasn't a smug arrogant asshole for doing that; but love it or hate it, within the context of this story, he's not wrong.
Woot
New chapter
Loves it
9704135
Yes, people do that, and it is, as you put it elsewhere in your comment, 'low hanging fruit'. However, this is due to the writers over at hasbro writing such an incompentent and negligent ruler in the first place. The way Celestia rules would be like if Kim Jung Un declared war on the United States and Donald Trump sent six civilians with a nuke to deal with the problem. That's absurd. Ludicrous. Mentally deficiant is the one who thinks that is ok. And yet, essentially, that is what Celestia does time and again. Whether it works or not in the show is irrelevent, because realistically, if the show was anything *but* a childrens show at the end of the day, Celestia's one and only go-to card could be easily defeated with a well placed assassin (probably with the death of Fluttershy, as she is know to avoid others and she wouldn't be noticed missing for the longest of the group-harsh but stratigacally accurate).
There are a million and one ways that Celestia's plans could make pears look like an ideal shape to be, and in any other scenario than canon MLP, a serious retcon is needed to make Celestia's plans even remotely believable, let alone acceptable. It can be done, don't get me wrong, I've read a few rather decent stories where I actually like Celestia as a leader and think she deserves the job. But that's just it, a *retcon*. A complete reimagining of her character. Taking directly from the show's depiction of her, she is negligent, dismissive, complacent and otherwise too inept to even be given an advisor's role to the crown, let alone direct control over Equestria itself.
If you don't like this story's depection of her, or you don't like the fact that a lot of stories have her as the lynchpin to a lot of the problems pervading them, I challange you to write her in such a way that she still makes the decisions she does in the show, but in a way that makes it seem logical and the best course of action, and make her worthy of the title of ruler. (This was not a retorical or sarcastic challenge-it is genuine.)
9704387
There becomes a point where it stops being justifications and just nothing but fishing for excuses because you don't want to the character you're rooting for in the wrong.
And that's where we are because when we're not finding ways to conveniently push any blame that we can on Celestia it's finding reasons to make him look as least guilty as possible because no matter how you slice he he severly screwed up in a completely irreversible way because people are dead. And it's not a what if scenario. No: innocent people are dead from stupid reckless actions.
Conveniently ignoring that the real problem was that you telling me to go away simply because I expressed my dislike over a decision in the story.
And I do disapprove of the decision in this story after it backtracks a path that was looking interesting to me. Which is why I'm voicing that disapproval in this story's comment section.
The comment section is not a section for circle jerking where everyone has to share the same positive/negative opinion. So no I'm not going to run to complain about it in a blog. (Which is you trying to low-key tell me to go away again which is rude).
Lastly, I don't give a damn about Discord being right or wrong.
Discord rubbing it in the faces of the other character is very much the same as the (in)famous Quagmire telling off Brian Griffin scene from Family Guy.
As Discord is a character who very much should not be trying to tell off anyone as he himself is a giant screw-up but because the story just had to find a way to cast Bone Marrow in a better light.
9704480
You've invalidated what you're trying to say with that right there. It's fine for the show because the show is a children's show.
But here on FimFiction where you have a bunch of teens to adults writing these types of stories to other teens and adults it doesn't fly. The only reason people are intentionally doing it is so they can rant at a fictional magical pony princess who will never hear their whining or because they want to go for the lazy way of making people like a character their promoting.
And after 5-9 years it should have gotten really really old but to see another story I like go that route is annoying and it is very fair to voice my displeasure at that.
9704519
Clearly we shall continue to disagree on a great many things.
That was meant to be a completely serious suggestion of something you could do on the side; completely separate of whether or not you continue to comment here.
Last i checked, unloading one's own complete thoughts on a specific subject into a blog post, does not require you to forgo ever commenting on it in the story comments sections; i apologize if my poor choice of wording implied otherwise.
Okay, wow! Loved the use of Discord in here. You've evolved the plot nicely and pointed out a major element for the stories base line (Celestia needing character development). The potential for this story to play out in a branching plot with twist and turns is incredible. Screw the haters, well written is well written.
Tell us when you get your patreon back, your stories have more love than you know.
NO NO Next hes the genie in Aladdin
This is amazing pls start a the next chapter I love it keep up the good work
Holy carp its not dead! Almost like necromancey?!
9704519
You are deliberately missing the point. Yes it's fine for a childrens show to not worry about the nitty gritty of reason overmuch. I'm not saying it isn't, nor am I saying that for the show it's a bad thing. But here on FimFiction where you have a bunch of teens to adults writing these types of stories to other teens and adults, where you have to try and weave a tale that is believable whilst similtanously adhering to what is shown in the show, as that is the only real canon that the stories can fall back on. And unfortunantly, it's far, far easier to call Celestia out for bs than it is for an author to come up with a believable reason as the why she seems to be incabable of ruling effectively. And I can agree with you that there is no point in harping on about Celestia's flaws-she's an imaginary character from an imaginary land that can neither see, hear, speak or think for herself; she has to be guided by a pen flowing across paper. But the whole reason most of us are on FimFiction to begin with (at least for me) is to see a more grounded, fleshed out and adult themed extension from the cutesy Friendship fixes absolutely everything no questions asked.
And unfortunantly for a certain pony princess, the show shows nothing to indicate a reason as to why she didn't try to get her subjects to also appreciate her sister as co-ruler, why she didn't notice Discord breaking free, why she, as the quite possible goddess of the sun, lost to a parasitic love bug, why her plan to fight of Tirek, who could have been quite literally actually killing her subjects in the show (take magic from a pegasus while they're trying to fly away, and I'm pretty sure without magic to cushion the fall you end up with a dead bird horse) was to give up, roll over, and let Twilight deal with it, just for something completely different, ect ect for all future conflicts ad infinim. Can you see how writing Celestia in a positive light when you have to cater to an audience with an average IQ above 20 becomes a tad challenging?
The problem isn't that people hate Celestia, per say, but rather, what is canonnically shown is what we have to base our own fan fictions off of, and what is shown is written with little thought on practical sense. It'd make Discord cry for joy, it would.
9703822
I feel like you don't get what he was going for. That entire bolded part doesn't matter becouse it was all reliant on how the characters are written. The author could just take that out especially because it only seems to be put in there to make Celestia look like that bad guy. This is an interesting topic. Bone did accidentally kill a lot of people and Celestia had a good reason to go after him, there really is no bad guy here other than the tree of harmony for setting this all up, from what I can tell she would have let him live somewhat normally of the tree didn't give her that vision. Really that is the only bad guy here as everyone had good motives for what they did. Though I would say discord ruined all the ambiguity and handwaved deaths just to make her look like the bad guy. The tree in canon said it grew and changed from what it was created to be and it is more of a sentient being now. They seem to worship it more than they do Celestia, hell even Celestia seems to follow its command without fail and that is a huge problem, it is just a being like any other and it was wrong. Honestly, if he found this out and destroys the tree would say he is in the right and THAT would be what is best for the ponies due to there reliance on the ancient being made of crystal.