“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” William Shakespeare
“There is not night without its stars.”
“Or night without its moon.”
A lavender filly was dying, she was in the middle of her entrance exam for Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns when a sonic rainboom caused her magic to spiral out of control, discharging a flare so powerful it tore at her body and consumed her life force.
In the most critical moment, just before Princess Celestia arrived to restrain the filly’s magic, time froze and the filly teleported to a stark white room.
“W-What happened? Where am I!?” the filly asked in panic. ”Am I dead!?”
“Not yet my little pony,” responded a soft but powerful voice “but you almost were.”
“Who’s there?” the scared filly asked. “Show yourself!”
“I'm right here...” responded the voice as it started to take the shape of an alicorn in front of the little filly, ”My little pony.”
“Princess Celestia?” asked the filly.
“No, I'm not this Celestia you speak of,” responded the alicorn. ”I'm Asteria, goddess of the stars, co-ruler of the night, and all of Equus.”
The filly was astonished by the presence of the alicorn calling herself a goddess in front of her. The newcomer was almost as tall as Princess Celestia, with a coat of dark purple and slitted draconic eyes in pink, an intimidating sight to the young filly before her. The alicorn's mane and tail resembled a colorful night sky full of stars, all dancing in a nebula shifting between dark blue, violet, and purple. She wore a toothy smile on her face. Her wings were majestic and her feathers went from that dark purple color of her coat to a violet at the end of them.
Neither of them spoke for a while until the goddess lowered herself to the eye level of the little filly.
“What is your name my little pony?” asked the goddess.
“M-my name is T-twilight Sparkle your Highness.” responded Twilight, bowing to the alicorn.
“Please, there is no need to do that,” said the goddess, “and call me Asteria.”
“Why am I here your Hig- I mean Asteria?” asked Twilight.
Asteria stayed silent for a moment while keeping her stare on Twilight, her horn glowed, an image of Twilight having her flare in a room with other ponies and a huge dragon appeared between them.
“You suffered a magic flare of unimaginable proportions for a mortal,” said Asteria, “I felt the magic by chance during my travel through space and time, I ended up freezing time to save your life, and changed space to speak with you.”
“Wow,” responded Twilight with sparkle filled eyes.
Asteria smiled and giggled at the filly's response, “It looks like your magic power is too much for your mortal body, I could help you survive, but the price would be large for both of us.”
“W-What would be the price?” asked Twilight shyly.
“Your soul...” responded Asteria straight and cold.
“What!?” shouted Twilight frightened.
“More like both our souls,” continued Asteria ignoring the panicking filly,”You may not realize it, but both our existences are similar to each other, as if you were me, and I were you, even our cutie marks are the same but with a different meaning.”
“Wait, I haven't got my a cutie mark yet,” said Twilight reacting to the comment and looking to her flank, then noticing that she actually got her cutie mark. It was a big purple star with five little white stars “I got my cutie mark!!! I got my cutie mark!!!! Yes yes yes yes yes!”
Asteria was astonished, looking at the filly jumping around happily at the realization that she had her cutie mark, only able to response with a soft smile.
“You're right, my cutie mark is the same as yours,” said Twilight as she stopped her happy dance. “How is that even possible?”
“Well my little pony, it’s really simple,” said Asteria looking at the filly cutie mark, “I'm you from a different universe or dimension, where you are a goddess and ruled for more than 3 thousand years.”
“Wow, but if that’s true, why are you here on my universe?” asked Twilight tilting her head.
Asteria lowered her gaze from the filly and her expression changed to pure sadness, almost to the point of crying.
“My universe is no more,” responded Asteria in sadness, she sighed before continuing, ”My world had been in peace for thousands of years, I ruled together with four other goddesses; my twin sister ruled the light, and I the stars of the night, while my older sister ruled over love and other such emotions.”
“What about the other two goddesses?” asked Twilight
“They were not my sisters by blood,” said Asteria closing her eyes and smiling softly as she remembered, “They were the goddess of the moon and the goddess of the sun; as the goddess of the stars, I worked together with the moon and after a few decades we fell in love, ruling the night for almost 3 thousand years until everything was gone.”
“One day, out of nowhere a dark, evil essence appeared on our world, it happened like an explosion, consuming everything it touched from life, magic, and even space and time; nothing was safe, it grew fast and deadly, my sister and sister-in-law were the first to go, they were on the side when it appeared, soon after, it had destroyed half of our world, and I'd lost my older sister too.”
Twilight was listening to the story in shock, just imagining the pain Asteria must be feeling by just remembering brought tears to her eyes.
“When all was almost lost, my love and I fled to the moon while trying to come up with a counter attack or a plan, unfortunately for us the darkness was consuming the magic of the sun and my stars, it was getting stronger, our last resort was to try to contain the darkness on our world so it couldn't do the same anywhere else. Using all our magic and power as goddesses we started to seal it, but just as the spell was to be complete we were attacked and only our souls survived the spell. We ended up lost in time and space; I lost track of my love centuries ago and I got here because I felt your magic.”
Twin streaks of tears rolled down Asteria and Twilight’s faces as the goddess finished her story. Twilight embraced the goddess, doing her best to comfort the Alicorn.
Both stayed in the position for quite a while until Asteria broke free from the hug with a small smile on her face.
“Thank you Twilight.” said Asteria as she nuzzled the filly cheek.
Twilight went back to sit in front of Asteria, her eyes still red from crying, but she was more calm than the goddess.
“Let me explain your situation since I can't hold you in this place for too long,” said Asteria, staring Twilight in the eyes, “I told you that to help both our souls would be the price, but is not what you think, as we are the same pony from different worlds and both share the resonance in our souls.”
“But I'm not a goddess.” said Twilight in a small voice, looking to her hooves.
“No, you're not. Your destiny on this world will change from what you were supposed to become, since your soul is as powerful as mine,” said Asteria, “I don't really understand the concept of your world, but your soul is linked directly to magic, which represents your special talent. That's the reason your body was almost destroyed by your flare, your full powers awakened for a moment and you were about to destroy yourself.”
“What can we do to fix it?” asked Twilight
“I can use what I have left of my power to fuse both our souls to help you ascend to godhood so you can control your power, but both our existences would disappear and a new one would begin with both our memories and power. Or you can choose to let destiny take its course and see if you survive, and I will continue to travel through time and space for all eternity until I find a new beginning for myself.” Asteria responded closing her eyes.
“No pressure...” responded Twilight sarcastically, sighing deeply, “How I do know that you’re not lying just to get my body?”
“I would have taken it by force if it was like that, also I'm not a evil goddess, I ruled for thousand of years taking care of my little ponies.” responded Asteria, “Besides it’s your world, you have the right to choose.”
Twilight closed her eyes and checked the possibilities, for one she would be reborn as an alicorn with the power of the stars, and magic at her command, the other was to tempt fate and hope to survive her own power.
For what looked like an eternity Twilight opened her eyes and for the first time while being in the presence of the goddess, her eyes were full of determination.
“Would I be able to live with my family or continue with my studies?” asked Twilight.
“Of course you will, your age will not change, nor will be your memories, you will share both our lives and experience, plus my knowledge and magic.” responded Asteria, “It’s more a continuation for you, and a new start for me, I lost everything I loved and now I'm giving you a chance to not lose yours.”
“OK, then I choose to have a chance for both us now, than wait for the best for both our existences.” responded Twilight with a bright smile on her face.
Asteria gave the most caring smile she could to the brave filly version of herself before channeling all her power to her horn, making them both shine in a bright purple light before they disappeared from the white space.
A “Thank you” was the last sound Twilight heard before everything went white.
A white, large alicorn fled from the castle to the school at great speed; Princess Celestia was moving as fast as she could to find the source of magic that blasted the school. When she finally arrived in the room she realized what was happening inside; the ones in charge of evaluating the entrance exam were in a panic as they floated, trapped in the filly's magic alongside a colossal dragon and plants who used to be ponies. And in the middle of it all the chaos was a filly having a magic flare.
So much power coming from just a little filly, thought it was an alicorn for a moment, thought Celestia, getting closer to the filly she tried to reason with her while using her own magic to control the filly's, she soon noticed her magic was not powerful enough for that.
Celestia started to think of all the different alternatives to stop the filly from destroying herself and everything around her. Then all of the sudden everything stopped, the magic came under control and all returned to normal as the filly slowly gathered her magic just before teleporting from where she was once all was back to normal.
Celestia didn't understand what had just happened, she just knew that the filly stopped the flare by her own power, and returned everything back to normal before disappearing from the room. She couldn't process the events for a moment.
Twilight's parents were in shock when they realized their daughter was missing from the room, and demanded the princess give an explanation of what had just happened.
Twilight appeared in her room back home, with her eyes closed she organized her thoughts, all the memories and experience of both their lives, making sure that she was still Twilight Sparkle but once she opened her eyes and looked in the mirror in her room, that thought disappeared.
Her appearance was mostly the same, but she now sported wings, an ethereal mane and tail, the dragon eyes (though the color was now a gradient of violet to pink, combining both their eye colors), and some small fangs.
Those parts were Asteria's but the body was Twilight's, the memories, the knowledge and experience were from both.
Asteria was right, we are a totally different existence now, thought Twilight, contemplating herself in the mirror.
After awhile Twilight focused and a purple flame surrounded her and as soon as it disappeared her eyes and mane were back to normal, and her wings were no more.
“This will help to keep our life as normal as possible, since there is no alicorns other than Celestia and our foalsitter,” muttered Twilight to herself, “Our parents must be panicking right now, but will be back soon, we should rest until they return and get ready for a long, long talk from mom.”
Laying on her bed and closing her eyes, the new goddess of this world took a nap, waiting for the hardest test of her new godhood. Her angry, worried parents.
You have good taste in music. I may just put on the .hack//Sign ost disk two.
I wanted to link to the song, but apparently the original isn't available online. Kind of silly, if you let people get a taste of the music they're more likely to buy the CD. (And it is absurdly good music.)
This sounds pretty good.
https://youtu.be/g-9lKKvMwAE
https://youtu.be/SaAbExags-U
I going to enjoy this, and I got feeling nova's lover is nightmare moon
You need to clean up a bit your tenses in the story, but hey, for a first try it's not bad at all! Well done.
If that's true when did the mirror get destroyed and isn't there anyway to repair it, I love the Equestria Girls World and would love to see them sometime in your story if you could do it.
Hmm I noticed you have trouble portraying past tense. When typing think about how it feels in terms of past, present and future tense.
Other than that good start.
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I'm not sure if they're blocked in your region (I know the original version of the intro to Saber Marionette J is blocked in Canada), given that they weren't at the top of the search results, but here's a copy of the track the story was named after:
(.hack//Sign OST - In The Land of Twilight Under the Moon)
...and here's the one the chapter was named after:
(.Hack SIGN Soundtrack - Key of the Twilight)
It's also not exactly common to find background tracks with vocals, but .hack//SIGN has a ton of them. For example, Fake Wings and The World.
(And don't forget .hack//LIMINALITY. Great intros and endings on those.)
Together with Noir, probably one of the most concentrated sources of anime music I love.
I love it but will she conceal her godhood from her parents and more importantly celestia
I hope so its ushally a good conflict
I feel like her having Asteria's memories ruins the experience a little bit. It just seems like she missed all the important steps of character growth.
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I understand but that would only help her with her magic, most of the characters and magic types used in that world are different from Ateria's. She still needs to learn to live with her family and friends, doing her duties without anyone knowing and the consequences of her actions
This is sounding interesting, but I noticed a lot of typos in the first chapter. This would be offputting to anyone trying to read it, and will detract from the story if everyone simply notices the typos instead. In an effort to help, I have listed them for you (not in a mean way; I mean well).
This description contains comma splicing and dangling modifiers. A possible fix could be:
"The filly was astonished by the presence of the alicorn calling herself a goddess in front of her. The newcomer was almost as tall as Princess Celestia, with a coat of dark purple and slitted draconic eyes in pink, an intimidating sight to the young filly before her. The alicorn's mane and tail resembled a colorful night sky full of stars, all dancing in a nebula shifting between dark blue, violet, and purple."
I am not sure where to mention the toothy smile, if it's relevant to the description, but it could be added with the coat and eyes if it also intimidates Twilight, or it could be placed at the end (like it currently is, but as a full sentence that can stand alone) with "She wore a toothy smile on her face."
existences are similar to each other. Also, the last half could be better expressed as "as if you were me, and I, you." The as-if works better, and there's a comma needed (the second one is for taste; you could expand that as "I were you," but I chose this version).
you'd want to say "while my older sister ruled over love and other such emotions."
The first half should make mention that she refers to the other two, since it's currently a sentence fragment. Also, "as the goddess of the stars, I worked together with the moon" (it's missing a comma).
"soon after, it had destroyed half of our world, and I'd lost my older sister too."
"When all was almost lost, my love and I fled to the moon while trying to come up with a counter attack or plan, unfortunately for us" Mainly a missing comma.
too long, also "Asteria, staring Twilight" needs a comma.
your
to --> through
nor will your memories
possible unwanted line break
"Asteria gave the most caring smile she could to the brave filly version of herself before channeling all her power to her horn, making them both shine in a bright purple light before they disappeared from the white space."
"the ones in charge of evaluating the entrance exam were in a panic as they floated, trapped in the filly's magic alongside a colossal dragon and plants who used to be ponies"
"Her appearance was mostly the same, but she now sported wings, an ethereal mane and tail, the dragon eyes (though the color was now a gradient of violet to pink, combining both their eye colors), and some small fangs."
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Thank you I will get to those a soon as I can
Is this another cliche 'Twilight becomes Alicorn way too quickly' story..
This is interesting.
I wrote a one shot with a similar premise to the one you had in the begjnning, though it seems we both went in very different directions with it.
Also, does LMkyouki have a fimfic account or do I have to reach them throught deviantart?
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Thanks, as for the artist, deviantart is the best option.
Fun fact! My current go at a novel features a human goddess named Astra
Also Hi! I found your story and I liked the premise. I saw like, a little bit of your writing right now and I can already tell I like it.
Onwards!
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I maintain what I said, though I couldn't help but notice it needs editing
The premise is still great though
I like these kinds of stories. The kind where I can tell that the subject matter is quality, but it is also quite apparent that the author is new to writing in general.
Fortunately, I'm one of those people who can enjoy this kind of thing despite the flaws.
I hesitate to point out the flaws, since the story itself is long enough that I'm sure you have improved since you wrote this.
But I will say this, since I still have trouble with this particular point. When describing a new character, remember to start with what would stand out to the character that is viewing it at the moment. And don't be afraid to give an incomplete picture. Just give the parts that stand out and leave the rest to more subtle contextual hints later. Like, I'm pretty sure Twilight would notice Asteria's large stature first, and then her mane (not necessarily tail), then her eyes. Then her wings, since multicolored wings are unusual. And always make sure to associate Twilight's feelings with the description.
If an author gets this right, it completely disguises exposition as normal character interaction.
I like this so far, you can tell an author is new by how they jump right into a story.
Can I take a guess and say Sunset's alternate version was her sister?
No matter how ma y times I read this, I still get the same thought in this chapter: Does Twilight truly understand the consequences of her decision? Yes, the memories of both parties are intact, as are their experiences, skill, and magical prowess. But by merging the two Souls, both Twilight Sparkle and Asteria die and cease to exist, a new entity taking their place.
And yes, I’ve read this before. Three times. Still get the same thought in this chapter.