“On the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape.”
Celestia was prepared to face Nightmare Moon in battle.
What she wasn't prepared for was to face her in a hospital bed.
Can be read both as a standalone and as a spiritual semi-sequel to “The Nightmare Crumples” by Eruantalon. Cover image courtesy of FluffyMixer, used with permission. Now has a Russian translation!
Caution: Story may contain cheese, overly dramatic moments, and a happy ending despite the 'sad' tag.
Chapters (1)
Good literature makes you think, not just laugh or cry. And this... This was one of those pieces that did just that.
8774467
Awww, thanks!
8774484
You're welcome. I felt every character's pain, and their worries. Also, I wondered what might have happened if The Nightmare was the only think keeping Luna alive all of those thousand years, and why Celestia might have made ponies forget in canon proper.
There wasn't enough ice cream therapy !
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That... wasn't how I meant that.
8774578
Darn, you're right!
I have tears in my eyes. They're good tears.
Such a sweet reimagining. I loved that ending.
That's because it all takes place after the Elements do their stuff. Neither Luna nor Moon trust Celestia. For her piece of mind, she has to fix that. And explain to the Mane Six what really happened. And come up with a reasonable explanation for the public. And a way for history to not repeat itself.
Trying to do that character dynamic while Nightmare was bedridden and passing out after only moments awake is impossible.
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8774578
Wow, I didn't expect this short story to have that much of an impact.
As I stated in the author's notes, I wrote practically 93% of this story nearly 3 years ago, but could never figure out how to fill the gaps. I did, however, manage to smooth them over a little, and then introduced those little "-/-" bits to imply mini-timeskips. How did those work out, by the way?
Still, I've always felt like there were still entire scenes missing, parts that needed to be fleshed out more, or opportunities I couldn't figure out how to take.
Like... what did Applejack say to Celestia, after Celestia told her she just wants her little sister back? That'd hit pretty close to home for Applejack.
Or... the ending should be a little longer, it's always felt too short to me, but I never had any good ideas how to flesh it out. (Maybe Celestia and "Luna Moon" eating icecream - which I imagine wouldn't have been around a milenium prior - while discussing the future, or something like that?)
Anyways, I am happy to hear people like it this much.
i am impressed this is a vary good story.
8774578 Dr. Flufflehouse will fix that!
This is a beautiful tale, and I do feel for you....it does feel incomplete and bits missing.
But thats something that I don't think that could have been fixed. This week would have been incredibly emotional for all involved and unless it became a massive story, I think it would have always had to cut some of the emotional scenes.
And as tkepner said, the story isn't over there. Fluttershy and Pinkie are almost certainly going to stay in Canterlot for a little while to try and mend the friendship between the 3 Alicorns, and a case can be made for the others staying for a while as well. And Twilight has learned her mentor is not only failible, but ALSO one of her biggest failings, so Twilight's now got to deal with that as well as learn about friendship at the same time.
And who knows how well Luna and Nightmare will get along. They likely have a massive case of Stockholm Syndrome, but its also possible, although unlikely, that they hate each other.
Lol two and a half years for one chapter, huh? It's better than some authors on the site.
8774979
Don't worry iv been sitting on many story ideas for years and what few times i put pen to paper i struggle to wrap all my ideas in a cohesive manor.
Mm, I feel like Nightmare Moon was a little out of character, but overall was a really nice read -- got a couple of cringes, so I know it's at least good
I like yours better than Eruantalon's.
This story deserves the feature slot it got.
Fairly nice. A bit hard to follow at times, and I wish there was some bit of physical description on "Luna-Moon" to help me understand their current situation.
What parts of Nightmare show through post rainbow blast? Is she full-sized or diminished? Does Luna have any motor control right now?
The ending feels incomplete because I as a reader am not sure where this story is leaving off. There are a lot of loose ends and A.U.-ness that are started but they don't really feel resolved or even at a "take a break" point like if this was written to be episodic.
The time skips work in this as a framing device, but where the work ends feels too much like I've been cut off for me to feel satisfied in this as a standalone work.
I'd like to see this continued if only so those niggling little loose ends can be wrapped up, so I don't feel soured about the way it ended.
I think this should have been a full story. This concept has so much more potential.
Nevertheless, it was a fantastic oneshot, though I felt some scenes were a little rushed. You left us having to fill in the gaps with some of whats transpired in a couple of the breaks.
glad you posted this story it was rather enjoyable.
8774979
The entire thing should be considerably longer. It's good as it is, but it has the potential to be so much more...
This is a nice stand alone story... right up until the last break. It could have ended right there on a high note and left the outcome up to the reader's imagination.
Instead we got this Luna-Moon stuff that just causes confusion and raises a bunch of questions.
It just BEGS for an epilogue to resolve this.
Either you meant to say "scrying," as in the practice of using magic to remotely observe distant events, or...
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I hate to be 'that guy', but...
donned*
All in all, a pretty good read. I think you're right, could do with a bit of fleshing out and there's a lot of potential that's just not being utilized... but, sometimes the muse just doesn't quite make it. We've all been there, bud.
- Headwind
So.. Are there two Alicorns .. Luna and Nightmare Moon ?
Or An Alicorn body with two heads (Luna head and Nightmare Moon head )?
Or... Trixie Luna-Moon ?
Good concept and was interesting to read, as well as a nice tug on the heartstrings. But like some said could have been longer, though I also feel that you maybe used the enter key too much. Dunno just a lot of one short one lines, when I think you could have let a couple of the lines group together into paragraphs.
Not big groups obviously but still paragraphs are a thing in books for a reason, they look nicer than lots of blank lines between single sentences.
BUT that just my personal preference in the end, so frankly meh. Wasn't a deal breaker or anything, as I'd still would suggest to others to read check this out.
Hot damn good fic. You managed to make me shed a tear, It's been years since a fiction caused me to weep good job.
An interesting idea indeed.
This is a very nice, sweet story! It really reminds me of this other [story] I enjoyed a while back; similar vibes but both a little unique from each other.
I'm sorry, but this reads more like an outline than a complete story. I breezed through it too quickly to really enjoy it, though you clearly have a grasp of good writing I think there could and should be more. It becomes so fast-paced it just skips over things that are actually important, like:
What does that even mean? Who is she? Why is Nightmare not gone?
Also, what? o.O
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8776986
I second this.
The "story" hits all the bullet points, but just the bullet points. A "full version" of the story would work wonders.
I'm not sure the lesson of 'everyone deserves a chance' applies to 'world-ending gods', regardless of how woobie they are because of relatable, emotion-triggering reasons. Eternal Night because they hated her sounds like taking revenge on the whole world (likely killing everything on it) for her own misconceptions. It's nice that it worked out in a way that everyone could be happy, and it was a good - but disjointed - read, but the lesson doesn't really apply in this specific case.
What a nice, sweet story. I liked it.
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8776986
I tought exactly the same thing.
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Icecream, yes!
The funny thing is, the it didn't even register as the Flufflepuff reference it so blatantly was.
)
I mean, that's the very scene I got the cover image from. I even had to edit out the icecream from the picture.
(And yes, I did ask for permission whether or not I may edit out the icecream from the picture.
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I am glad to hear the timeskips worked out. Those are exactly the sort of skips that have me usually tearing my hair out, trying to fill in the connecting pieces in what ends up taking weeks, even months - it's usually, what keeps a chapter or story from completion, the "last few missing single-sentence / single-paragraph transitions". I do so envy people who can just do that in an evening.
Here, I eventually figured I would leave the skips as they are and see how people react. I must say, I am quite positively surprised.
So far, I've gotten the suggestion of including "icecream therapy" in an extended ending.
...Actually, as silly a suggestion that is, I do imagine icecream did not exist a millenium prior, and as such would probably be quite interesting to "Luna-Moon".
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Ah! Fixed. Didn't know that was wrong, I'm actually not a native English speaker. (le big twist!)
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That was not what I meant with that!
I was picturing the Mane6 sneaking into the castle, but Celestia not receiving any visitors at all --- and Rarity generously "giving herself up" as a distraction to buy the others time to reach Celestia, resulting in her getting arrested with all the most prestigious ponies of the Canterlot Elite as witnesses to her "social suicide".
Just couldn't find the muse on making this into a fully-fletched scene, so I just left it as an off-hoof reference to something "larger".
Of course, now that I'm thinking of it again for the first time in like 2+ years, some thoughts do come to mind.
Although, then I'd probably have this awkward one mini-scene of the Mane 6 sneaking around the castle, and after the very next scene-break they're already in Celestia's bed chambers facing the Nightmare, already having talked with Celestia... Yeaaah.... That also would have been awkward pacing. :-/
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I know!
I completely agree with you, it's, why I didn't publish what was pretty much 93% of the current story for 2 years and nine months, occasionally coming back to it in an attempt to "improve it", but the muse just wouldn't strike. 
Eventually I simply "rounded off" the edges of the story and decided to hit "publish", otherwise it would probably have just stayed on my harddrive.
...Like the other seven-ish stories I am still working on besides the two I have already have published chapters to show for.
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I knooooooooow, right?
8776569
Well, I was thinking of something along the lines of 1½ alicorns in a single body, with some blur between where one's mind begins and the other's ends.
Or were you thinking of something more like this?
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[image link]
Just be glad it isn't this:
[WARNING: MEMETIC HAZARD. YOU MAY NOT BE ABLE TO UNSEE.]
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[image link, complete with short-story]
(And why yes, I am the artist!
)
8777407
Ah, missed that by 6 minutes.
Read this (or just scroll down one comment below this one.)
8776569
In spanish, Luna means Moon.
So Luna-Moon is Moon Moon.
Moon Moon is now pony royalty. I'm okay with that.
8777417
Sometimes it's better to put something incomplete out than to sit on it and have nothing out.
The story is good just not... full.
I always like when people use the false assumption that something controlled Luna, when in reality it was all Luna. 😈
Man, I feel like you could have really made this into a longer story... I respect your choice, of course, of keeping it really simple but it does feel like you missed a good chance to create something great.
This story seems more to me like a sweet dream come true than a nightmare!
Neat.
This was a really interesting premise, but I did feel like bits were missing in the execution. A lot of the scenes felt truncated or summarised. Time skips between scenes are a perfectly good framing device, but you want the story within each scene to be full detail. For example the unstoning, which was brushed away in only a paragraph. Having Twilight caught in stone, trapped and afraid, then rescued by the others, could have been such a deep emotional hook, but instead it evaporated so quickly.
There were some very nice ideas here, like the way the six mares became their elements, under different circumstance but still the same core characters. The star of that is Fluttershy, of course, taking pity even on a monster. It is very difficult to show a conflict when one of the characters can barely act at all. Even so, you have a good internal conflict for Celestia here: torn between her sister and the monster, between fear and pity and longing. Like the rest of the story that needs expansion.
I think the big solution to your problem here is show, don't tell. For example, take these lines:
Instead of simply relating this, try writing an actual scene in which it happens, where these circumstances are made clear by characters' words and actions. A conversation between an angry Prince Blueblood, an insistent Raven Inkwell, and the philosophical but concerned Zebrican ambassador, a conversation which Twilight happens to overhear while she's trying to get in.
The first paragraph is good - it's personal and physical. The second is a broad summary. It would be much more effective if you tell us something about the room that's so impressive, and how the girls react to it. Show us Pinkie Pie bouncing around, Rainbow admiring the chandelier, Fluttershy loving a thick soft rug. And tell us all of that from Twilight's point of view.
A story is more effective when it feels like we're experiencing it, rather than just being told about it. Try to put every event into a scene and write it from a character's point of view, with everything they see and hear. There's a limit to the amount of physical detail to include, of course, but that level is dictated by the character and the pace of the story.
WHO INVITED FUKKIN MOON MOON
Do you mean "scrying" ? IDKY spell checker doesn't like that word, It's in the dictionary.
You probably mean "HOLIDAY"?
This really needs more added to it in my opinion
Congrats on getting top spot in the feature box!
Great idea, and I did enjoy it. Any complaints I might have are already well-covered by other comments. Hopefully it's popularity means someone will take up your challenge to expand on it. Maybe even cause a bunch of spin-offs like happened with "Blink" or "Would It Matter If I Was?"