Coda: Many Moons Later
I was on the castle balcony, basking in the late morning sun with my wings stretched out to dry from the shower, when second breakfast arrived.
Let’s be clear – I’m not the kind of pony who normally takes two breakfasts. Sometimes I barely remember to eat breakfast at all, or I just grab a muffin from Sugarcube Corner as I go about my day. On the days fate chooses to keep me in the castle longer than normal and I’m feeling peckish, my usual answer is a bowl of oatmeal, maybe with some brown sugar or a sliced banana. Simple things. The kind of food even a mare with absolutely zero culinary knowledge can produce without creating a fire hazard.
I’d had one such breakfast already, a bowl of toasted cornflakes with milk. And now, it seemed, I had another breakfast. A much better one, by the smell of it. The warm, heady scent of caramelized sugar and butter and cream invaded my muzzle and set up camp.
I turned my head, careful to keep my wings oriented toward the sun. They were still damp and needed its rays. Behind me, sweeping through the crystal doors out onto the balcony, bearing a platter stacked high with pancakes and whipped cream and maple syrup and blueberries, came Trixie like the wind. She darted forward, brushed against my left wing, spun behind me to my right, and slid the pancakes onto the crystal rail. They teetered there, balanced above the high drop to Ponyville far below, and it was only just in time that I caught them with my magic. A single blueberry, unbalanced from the pile, rolled away from its brothers, slid through the cream, and escaped off the edge of the plate to begin the long fall to the ground.
A tiny bright blue fruitbat launched out from its nook beneath the balcony. It caught the berry, somersaulted through the air, then retreated with its prize. I heard him chittering with his mate through the crystal below me.
“For me?” I asked. Silly question – there was nopony else out here. But I’d feel pretty foolish if I started to eat and it turned out the pancakes were for somepony else.
Trixie didn’t answer. Unencumbered by the plate she danced like a flag in the wind, catching the sun in her brilliant fluttering folds. A wavering portal into night. She ran her tasseled edge against my chest, flicked my chin lightly, then vanished back inside. A few moments later her hat followed, bobbing along like a duckling chasing its mother.
Huh. I stared after her, then turned back to the pancakes. They smelled delicious.
No sense in letting them go to waste, even if I wasn’t hungry. I took a bite, then another, and another, and soon the memory of those poor toasted cornflakes was gone. It could never have competed with this.
Only later, with my wings dry and the pancakes a warm lump in my gut, did I wonder about the source of the gift. In all her years here, I could never recall Trixie bringing anypony breakfast, and certainly not me. We were barely any warmer toward each other than in the days when she took Starlight from me, and she was more the type to steal somepony’s breakfast than make it for them.
Huh.
There were a few blueberries left on the plate. I tossed them over the balcony edge to the circling fruitbats, watched their shadows play, then went back inside.
* * *
Starlight was downstairs in the library foyer, apparently waiting for me. She wore her old form, minus her cutie mark, and smiled as I floated down the stairs.
“Hey.” I gave her a polite nuzzle, just a brush of cheek against cheek. “The weirdest thing just happened.”
She fell into step beside me as we walked through the library. “Was it Trixie giving you a big stack of pancakes, by any chance? I just saw her in the kitchen with them.”
“It was.” We stopped by the check-in desk, and I pulled out the bin of returned books. None of them appeared to be late, and I floated them over to one of the reshelving carts. “Did you put her up to that? They were delicious, by the way.”
“Maybe.” A flash of green fire washed over Starlight’s form, and in her place stood the old Trixie, complete with her horn. “Or maybe she just felt like being nice. She’s allowed to do that.”
“Trixie’s only nice to me when she wants something,” I said. Then I stopped and sighed, because suddenly everything made sense. “So, what does she want?”
Starlight snorted. The fire consumed her again, and she became the changeling whose form she normally wore. Her wings clicked at her sides. “I don’t know. She won’t tell me.”
“Really.” I looked around for the magician. Trixie wasn’t in the room, but her shadow could never hide from me. It was several levels above us, in the personal quarters she shared with Starlight, draped over a writing desk. Even through several meters of crystal I could see the glint of the sun on her silver threads.
What’s your game, Trixie? I watched for a few more moments, to see if she would give herself away, but soon enough I had to return my attention to Starlight and the library.
A mare could only stare at the ceiling for so long before ponies started to wonder about her, after all.
* * *
“Sounds to me like Trixie’s trying to turn over a new leaf,” Rarity said.
We were on the patio of the new Starbucks, mulling over our drinks. Rarity preferred the shade, and she made a point of bringing it with her wherever she went. She caught the shadows in her web and strung them along like balloons bobbing from strings, and she reclined beneath them like they were a parasol. She blew on her macchiato to help it cool.
I sat as close to her shade as I could bear. The mid-afternoon sun pounded on my back like hail. I felt it in my bones. It was wonderful.
“She’s had years to do that,” I said. I took a sip from my chai latte, not minding the hot sting on my tongue. One advantage of being an alicorn – we could drink anything without waiting for it to cool. “Why start now?”
“Who says she’s starting just now?” Rarity countered. “You remember when she first came to Ponyville, don’t you? That was hardly the same mare Starlight fell in love with. Maybe it just takes her a while to warm up to ponies.”
“Rarity’s right,” Fluttershy said. She lounged in the light beside me, patiently grooming herself with her tongue. I could feel the heat of her body competing with the sun against my coat. “Maybe she just wants to show a little kindness for all you’ve done. Letting her live in the castle is very nice of you.”
“Precisely.” Rarity smiled. “If Trixie were not a good mare, then Starlight could never have fallen for her. If you won’t trust our judgement, at least trust hers.”
“Of course I trust your judgement,” I said. “And I trust Starlight’s. Though, in Starlight’s case, her judgement may be a bit, uh...”
Fluttershy smiled a tiger’s smile. She sat up, muscles rolling beneath her coat as though her skin were merely a cloak draped over her body, and she leaned against my side. Her legs snaked around to pull me into a loose hug, and she set her chin on my shoulder. The burning heat of her belly felt very different from the clean, sterile light of the sun.
Okay, yeah, I’ll admit it. I started to breathe a bit faster.
“Would you say,” Fluttershy stage-whispered in my ear, clearly loud enough for Rarity to hear as well, “that her judgement is clouded? Maybe even blinded by her love?”
A field of blue magic surrounded Fluttershy and tugged her away. She gave Rarity a little pout and settled back down on her belly, a puddle of languid and grace that drew the eye of every stallion (and several mares) sharing the patio with us. Next to her, I felt like a plum-colored crow.
“Darling, don’t tease her like that,” Rarity said. After a short pause, “Or, at least, not in public. I encourage you to tease her in private.”
“Thanks, Rarity.” I tried to flatten my feathers with a hoof, but they insisted on standing on end. “Anyway, what should I do?”
“Anyway, about what?” Fluttershy asked.
“About Trixie!”
“Well, unless you have some objection to demonstrations of generosity and friendship from a mare who lives in your castle, I suggest you keep enjoying the pancakes.”
I did enjoy pancakes, so that course of action had one thing going for it. But a stubborn pebble in my heart resisted. “Why, though? Why now, of all times?”
“You’re her lover’s best friend,” Fluttershy said. “Isn’t that a good enough reason?”
It should have been. More than any other pony, I should’ve known that an offer of friendship, no matter its reason, should be accepted. That friendship was the most valuable treasure ponies could accumulate, beyond gold or power or even knowledge. And in the end I felt that stubborn little pebble in my heart erode, its layers washed away by the ceaseless flow of blood. But even as it vanished and I came to to the realization that a good mare in my position would accept Trixie’s offer, a shadow on my thoughts remained. It was an ugly thing, unworthy of me; I felt it blocking the sun like greasy smoke.
Trixie was still the mare who’d taken Starlight from me. And that wound still hurt.
* * *
Starlight found me while I was reading. She hopped up on the couch beside me and settled in with her own book. We exchanged wordless smiles and went back to our respective pages.
Equestrian literature had undergone something of a renaissance over the past few years. Not as many ponies wrote, but those who did imbued their stories with an almost tangible effervescence, as though they had discovered how to pour their very beings into their work. Perhaps they had discovered how to dream of writing.
My own book was one such tale, published the summer before by a Canterlot unicorn who was either a mare or a stallion, depending on the day of the week. Lost Nights was half-diary, half-fantasy, and engrossing in a way that few novels managed with me. At heart I still preferred histories and biographies, but these new works were forcing me to reassess what I liked. Perhaps one day I would relent and permit that display of monthly bestsellers in the library foyer that Starlight kept insisting we make.
I don’t know how long we read. Long enough for the sun to sink below the horizon. Starlight got up to light the lanterns I no longer needed. When she came back, Trixie was with her.
The marvelous hat and cape floated before us, then settled down, as though draping themselves on an invisible mare. I could see the outlines of a pony’s shoulders, back and rump beneath the cloth. The formless mare bowed to us both, reared up as though upon her hind legs, and began to dance.
Even just laying on a table, the cape Rarity had crafted for Trixie was beautiful beyond words. I’ve tried to describe it to ponies who haven’t met her, and I always fail. It was like a piece of the night sky, trimmed out of the heavens by a seamstress’s shears and sewn with silver stars. In its depths dwelled the shadows of beryls and opals and sapphires and every other nocturnal gem. Even I, who could no longer see the night sky, was entranced.
Laying still on a table, Trixie was beautiful. Dancing, flowing, living, she transcended that. She spun around the room, pirouetting as though clasped around an invisible neck. Unseen hooves grabbed her hat and swung it about in time with her hips. For minutes she flew; she hopped above the furniture, over our heads, and snapped across the high vaulted ceiling. From the heights she fell, her folds flowing with waves like water over stones. She came to a rest atop Starlight’s back, and she tied herself in place around Starlight’s neck. The cloth seemed to vibrate, as though still breathing heavily.
The hat followed a moment later, landing with far less ceremony atop my rump. Starlight snickered.
I had to swallow the lump in my throat. “That was beautiful.”
The cape fluttered. One edge lifted away from Starlight, gave a little flick, and suddenly it held a piece of paper. It fell, and I barely caught it before it hit the floor.
Huh. I pulled it closer. Starlight peered over my shoulder.
It was a flyer. The Third Annual Canterlot Performance Art Show. A list of performers followed the title. The only name I recognized was Trixie’s, third from the top. It was in three days.
I smiled. “Would you like me to come, Trixie?”
She couldn’t answer, of course. But a ripple ran across her, and Starlight giggled at the sensation.
“We would both love it if you came,” she said.
Grudges were comforting things, in the same way picking at a scab is comforting. They did nothing but draw out pain. I knew that in my heart. It weighed on me as I stared at the flyer.
Still… if any of the performances were even half as good as what Trixie could give, it would be worth it. But more important, my best friend… friends, perhaps… wanted me to. And that was all the reason I needed.
“I guess It would be nice to visit Canterlot again,” I said.
* * *
The capital had settled down a bit after the Dawning. It was no longer perpetually night, though there were enough unicorns (or former unicorns) in the city that the stars always shone, no matter the time of day. The moon and sun kept a cordial distance from each other in the sky. I frowned a bit at the sight of the former – there had been two natural eclipses over the past four years, and they were the only times I could not see the sun. Those were cold minutes that left me shaking for hours afterward.
A few foals noticed us disembark the train, and they galloped over to pelt us with questions. Yes, I was a princess. Yes, those were real wings. No, I hadn’t dreamed of them. Yes, Celestia really did like cake that much. I was about to launch into an inspirational speech about the importance of libraries when their parents arrived, apologized for the bother, and pulled them away.
Starlight smiled after them. “I guess foals still want to grow up to be princesses.”
“Well, maybe they will.” The wind picked up, ruffling my feathers, and I wished for a moment I’d brought a scarf. Every time I came back to Canterlot, the mountain surprised me with its cool air.
Trixie must’ve noticed me shiver. She lifted off of Starlight’s shoulders and settled onto mine. I raised an eyebrow at Starlight (the only reason I still had eyebrows), but she just shrugged and smiled.
Hm. Maybe she didn’t mind the chill. I suppose living for years in the cold desert that was Our Town might have inured her to it in the way living in Ponyville had inured me to random acts of chaos.
So, warmer at least, we we walked into the throng of ponies and once-ponies, finding our way to the garden at the city’s heart.
* * *
A sizable crowd had assembled for the performances. Most were ponies, though a few gryphons and sphinxes and odder forms filled out the audience. A shadow that looked like a lamia’s haunted the edge of the garden. A few mares glowered at her and shuffled the nearest stallions to the far side of the courtyard, where she couldn’t tempt them.
Some ponies had more dangerous dreams than others.
We were early, still. As time passed the crowd became more of a festival, as merchants relocated their stalls from Canterlot’s normal markets to the edges of the garden. A bevy of scents flooded my muzzle – beer and fruit juices and seared vegetables and sugary confections and fried everythings. School groups showed up with herds of foals that turned the garden into a constant shouting match. At one point a daring amber filly snatched Trixie’s hat away, and it became the object of some game or other that involved running and tripping and squabbling and frustrated teachers trying to corral chaos itself. I wondered, briefly, how near Discord’s statue had to be for the ambient chaos to break him free. Then I wondered how Trixie was tolerating all this.
She didn’t seem to mind. Or, at least, the cape half of her didn’t. It fluttered calmly on my shoulders.
By the time the performances began, the crowd was in a good mood. Ponies still enjoyed any excuse for a festival; or, perhaps, the ponies who remained in cities did. The more reclusive ones had gone off to find their own meanings in solitude.
Trixie unclasped herself from my shoulders and floated over to Starlight. Her hat reappeared from wherever it had vanished to. I gave them both a curious look.
“We’re going to go get set up.” Starlight stretched up to nuzzle my cheek. “Enjoy the performances.”
“I’m sure I will.” It would be colder without them, but not unbearably so. The sun’s rays, though dimmed and reddened by their steep angle, were still enough to fill me. I caught them with my magic and fashioned a necklace with them. A few nearby ponies ooh’d in appreciation and crowded closer for their warmth.
The first performance was a drum ensemble, inspired by some zebra myth. They even had a real zebra on stage with them, leading the pack. I wondered if he knew Zecora, then chided myself for the question. Not ever zebra was bound to know every other. I let the beat of the drums roll over my silly thoughts, and in time the audience began stomping their hooves with the drums. It shook the hollow spaces in my chest and vibrated my feathers.
Not bad for an opening act. I realized, as they left the stage, that I was smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Not bad at all.
The second act was a dramatic reading from a popular collection of poems. Interesting, if one was into poetry. I wasn’t. I clapped politely while waiting for Trixie’s performance.
Finally, Starlight walked out onto the stage, wearing Trixie as usual. She bowed to the crowd, then reared up onto her hind legs and threw off the cape and hat. But rather than fly away on an arc, both pieces of cloth froze in mid air, just inches from her hooves. They hung there, unmoving as flies trapped in amber, while Starlight returned to all four hooves and walked off into the wings.
The silence that followed as absolute. The crowd leaned forward as once, barely breathing. Still the hat and cape hung in space, still as a picture. Ponies around me began to mumble to their neighbors.
Finally, when the tension was thick enough to chew, Trixie began. A violinist began to string behind the stage, and Trixie flowed in time with it. Her dance flowed across the stage like water, and though I had seen it before, it still took away my breath. When she finished, the crowd cheered. The cape and hat dipped low in a bow, then zipped off the stage.
The performances continued. At some point Starlight and Trixie reappeared beside me. The cape fluttered with exhaustion, and I noticed several tears along her edges. Starlight noticed my concern.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Little rips heal in a few days. Rarity can fix anything bigger.”
Ah. Convenient, having a seamstress for a doctor. I wondered if Rarity had ever tried mending real ponies with her new silk.
The next several acts were impressive, in their own ways. A pyromancer set the stage on fire with her dances. A pair of pegasi brought down a cloud and sculpted it before our eyes into a willow tree so lifelike that each hanging frond of leaves swayed in an unfelt breeze. A unicorn mare somehow sang both parts of a duet – only at the end of did I notice the glow of her horn, and realize she was using time magic to burn her life twice as fast.
They were all spectacular, though I thought Trixie’s was still the best. I clapped along with the crowd.
By the time the maintenance teams were cleaning the stage for the final performance, the sun had sunk below the horizon. I could see it still, shining through the earth below the city’s roots. For everypony else, lanterns were strung across wires over our heads. The wind grew cooler, and I squeezed up beside Starlight to share our warmth. Trixie adjusted herself to drape across both our backs.
“This is the big one,” Starlight said. “The headline.”
Hm? I pulled the flyer out of my saddlebags. The finale was a duet of some sort, to judge by the name. The Lovers. I glanced around at the crowd, which still contained a fair number of foals.
“It’s not… nothing inappropriate, is it?”
“Oh, no.” Starlight shook her head. “Just watch. You’ll see.”
Up on the stage, the lights dimmed. A spotlight popped on, and a lone earth pony stallion walked out. He bowed to the crowd, sat on his haunches, and began to sing.
It was… nice, I guess. An a capella rendition of Celestia, the Dawn Breaks for Thee, a popular romantic ballad a bit over a century old. I was wondering who his partner was for the female voice when she landed on the stage.
She was huge, in the way of adult gryphon hens. The wood planks beneath her buckled as she landed. The feathers on her chest were stained purple in the pattern of the Griffonstone exiles. Her beak looked big enough to crack a pony’s skull. But I noticed none of these things because, like most of the crowd, I was staring at her wings.
They were nothing but bone. Twin skeletal fans extended from her shoulders. Enormous, ivory beams bound at the joints with dry ligatures. Little holes dotted their lengths, as though the bones belonged to a centuries-dead corpse rather than a living gryphon. It was so shocking I barely heard when she began to sing.
Her voice was like the wind in the mountains. Haunting, echoing, filled with loss. It transformed the joyous verses of the song into a mournful cry for what might have been. She sang the song in the minor key for which it had never been intended. In her words, the old song became new.
She knelt on the stage as she sang. The stallion walked up beside her, took in a deep breath, lowered his mouth to one of the holes in the wing bone near her shoulder, and the performance truly began.
Pegasus bones were hollow. So too were gryphon bones. My bones were hollow now, or at least some of them were. And at some point over the years I should’ve remembered that the bones of large birds were used to make the earliest flutes.
Funny how little facts like that never matter until they hit you in the face.
She sang, while he played. His hooves danced over the holes in her wing, changing the flow of air. A sound began to build from the edge of hearing, rising like the dawn and bursting into life. She sang and he played with notes that resonated through the thin walls of her bones. A dreamlike, melancholic swell of music drawn from a still-living instrument.
The crowd fell silent. And when the lovers finished, it was as though we woke from a dream. Scattered applause dotted the field, but in the main only whispers reigned. The two on the stage seemed to expect this; they bowed and retreated without waiting for us to recover.
“Not bad, huh?” Starlight asked. The lights came back on, and the crowd finally began to applaud. It built and built and lasted for minutes.
In time, I was able to reply. “I can see why they were the final act. I’m sorry, Trixie, but I think you’ve got some…” I trailed off. Trixie was missing.
“Where—” I started.
“She just went off to get something.” Starlight stepped around me and began to walk across the garden. The crowd turned into a slow flow of ponies beginning to disperse. “C’mon.”
I could still see Trixie’s shadow, of course. She was across the garden, in the direction Starlight was walking. Probably basking in the crowd’s appreciation. For a moment a shadow of that old disdain colored my thoughts – the disregard I felt for her boasting and pride. But only for a moment, and then it subsided into a grudging and perhaps even welcome realization, that Trixie deserved this attention. That I ought to be admiring her too.
So it was that I smiled as we made our way through the crowd. My happiness for her built and built, and I was ready to put away all the resentment and ill-will I’d harboured in my heart all these years. I was finally ready to be her friend.
Then we broke through the last line of ponies, and I saw Trixie draped around the shoulders of an orange pegasus mare. The cape turned, pulling the mare with it, and for the first time in years I looked into Applejack’s surprised face.
I froze. Applejack blinked, as though not recognizing me. Finally, her gaze traced its way from my sealed eyes to my horn, then my wings, and she nodded.
“Well, howdy princess. Fancy meeting you here.” She shrugged Trixie’s cape off her.
I turned to Starlight. She wore a strained smile, made of equal parts hope and anxiety. I could smell the sweat breaking out in her coat.
Trixie floated over to me. She fell onto my shoulders, and her folds billowed up to my cheek. She gently turned my head back to Applejack, who watched us with bemusement.
“Looks like you three are doin’ alright,” she said. “How’s things in Ponyville these days?”
Good, I wanted to say. Better than good. But I could not force my jaws to open, or my lips to form the words. All I could remember was that night in Ponyville when things weren’t good. One of the worst nights of my life. The night Applejack had cut herself loose and flown away.
“Your family’s fine,” I said. Then, because I wished words were knives, I twisted them. “If you care.”
Applejack shrugged. “As much as I care about anypony, I suppose. Wasn’t trying to hurt them or anything.”
“You burned down their home. Your home!” A bit of fire entered my voice. Ponies began to mumble around us. “You think that didn’t hurt them?”
“I know it did.” Applejack looked around at the crowd, barely acknowledging their stares. As if we weren’t the center of the night’s final performance. “But I had to do it. Can’t fly if you’re too weighed down.”
I swallowed. “They’ve forgiven you, you know.”
Applejack nodded. “No surprise. They’re good ponies.”
“Do you even care?”
Applejack stared at me. Her eyes fixed on my face, where my eyes had been, and I realized this was the first time she’d seen me like this. I wondered what she thought.
Finally, “Will you forgive me?”
Trixie squeezed tighter around my shoulders. I heard Starlight stop breathing. I imagined what might come next, if only I said yes.
“Ponies change,” I said. “Maybe someday I'll be a pony who can forgive you. And you'll be a pony who wants forgiveness. But... but neither of those ponies exist today.”
Applejack grunted. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she just shrugged. Her wings beat, and with much more grace than I remembered, she lifted into the night. In a few seconds even her scent was gone, and I could breathe again.
Starlight sagged. Trixie floated to her and bundled tight around her shoulders. I waited for them to reproach me.
She didn’t, though. She was too good for that. Better than I deserved. She just stared up into the sky after our departed friend. Former friend. Whatever.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I couldn’t.”
“Yeah.” She dabbed at her eyes with her fetlocks. “It’s fine.”
It wasn’t fine. But it was what we had chosen. And even in this new world of mirages and dreams and impossible things, our choices were still what defined us.
I pondered that all the way home.
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doesn't make it better
Glad you addressed some issues from the ending. It makes it a bit easier to swallow, though I think some commentators will take issue with you portraying the ending in a continued positive light.
I don't have any particular issue with this extension . This story was wonderful and I hope that some of the flack it has received does not dissuade people from considering what is a fantastically written piece!
I personally never wanted to come off as bashing your work. I just was engaging with the difficult concepts you managed to bring up in your writing and how it successfully made me challenge the traditional view of our beloved characters. I may have not liked where it took them but that's not the point of the story and that's the sign of a great story where the characters are acting against how I want them yet still keeps me engaged. I really hope the lets say, opinionated, comment section has not left you dispirited.
9579806
I respectfully disagree. This addresses the vast majority of my concerns and emphasizes the consequences, both good and bad, of Twilight's decision at the crux of things.
Thanks for this, CiG. I feel a lot better about this story now.
This is better than I expected, at least a little closure on Applejack, but still doesn't fix everything for me.
I'm not disliking the story as much now, as the vengeance I felt Applejack needed is at least somewhat there, but the ending still feels rushed to me.
Maybe I'll dislike it less if there is some more exploration of this new world.
9579925
I see no good consequences to it so....
Unfortunately for me, this doesn’t address any of my concerns from before. Not that I ever disliked the story itself. And this bonus chapter....feels very disconnected from the rest. The attitudes and overall feel doesn’t match up with the conclusions Twilight reached at the actual end of the story.
Yeah no, this is somehow worse. It's the equivalent of someone standing there, covered in blood, screaming through gritted teeth "and they lived happily ever after" just hoping you don't ask about the pile of bodies behind them. How are foals even a thing in this new world? Those who have the most unrestrained dreams and desires? How does any of this actually logically follow from the established other than to try to convince people the ending somehow wasn't as dark as it actually was.
I don't know how to feel about this.
...It exists, I guess?
It was okay. Nothing terrible, but nothing too special. I'd probably like it more, but I just can't shake the feeling this whole chapter is just an attempt (be it deliberately or subconsciously) to save face after all the fuss over the ending.
Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just the vibe I'm getting.
It’s different. That is how would describe what happened to the world. Trying to understand stand it is like trying to understand Fae Courts or the mind of a Eldritch horror, you can’t. You can’t really label it as worse or better because it isn’t something that you can understand. They aren’t ponies any more, Discord made them something else on accident, something so much more and yet so much less than they were, and they are here to stay.
Honestly I’d like a sequel, or more like this. to this just to focus on the world and all the things that happened within.
I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the story. I don't object to the characters expressing themselves through disquieting changes. That wrongness makes the story compelling.
Every map should have a place that bears the legend "Here be monsters."
As far as I can tell the biggest change here is that there is no status quo anymore, no more normality. Everything is literally what everypony wants it to be
I loved the original ending, but a nice addendum is good too
. Quick question, were only ponies affected by Discord's change, or were all sapient creatures (gryphons, minotaurs, changelings, etc.)? Were animals affected?
What if one of the villains dreamed of having the power to end all life on the planet?
You know, if their dreams come true, and all.
You see, sugar-coating it just makes it even more phony. I know very well how most people think, even if I'm rather a mutant myself.
It continues to be well written. I enjoyed the little bit about the lamia and how some ponies have darker dreams than others. Although it’s been stated outside nopony dies, I see that as a subtle hint that bad things do happen. It still has the feeling of trying to affirm this as a good ending where I strongly disagree, but I will not criticize an author for the plot of a story. If I find it lacking, I don’t read it, and I happily (mostly) read this to the conclusion.
I kinda like the inclusion of the jealousy. I know some find it jarring or out of place, but I think it works well. Though I fear that Twi might dream Trixie into a fireplace one day.
Honestly I like this story. I won't say it's one of my favorite things, but I do think it is really well done...not horror exactly. Maybe psychological thriller? I dunno. It's a story with a hard ending to swallow, but I think that makes it interesting.
But I still can't forgive AJ. Her shit was just...nrgh...not a fan. Which I suppose is the point.
Either way, thank you for the interesting story.
Trixie put on a fine performance, well done!
And the world spins on, yes? There are better realms, there are worse realms. What can one really do, beyond making what one may out of each coming day?
9580124
If it's impossible to understand at all then it's impossible to represent in a story.
Please tag this as Dark
A bit too sugar coated for me and I'm a guy who loves his happy endings. Not really sure if this story needed one, but I guess it turns it from Dark back to Drama so there's that.
I didn't like the original ending, but I did respect it. This addendum however simply doesn't fit in my eyes.
I haven’t read the journal entry about this yet... I thought I’d give my impressions based on the story and this added Coda alone.
For me, it doesn’t really fit the larger story well due to the lack of the foreboding tone of the prior chapters. The pervasive dreamlike state feels absent here, which makes a return to the new “slice-of-life” for our characters not sit quite right.
What it does for me, however, is convince me that I’d be interested in a separate sequel story revisiting these changed characters that is free to establish its own tone, should you care to ever write one. I find Spider-Rarity and Fluttersphinx to be quite interesting characters, and the new Trixie to be one as well. I don’t know that I’m convinced that the end of the prior story *wasn’t* a nightmare, but I don’t know that I need to be in order to find interest in exploring this new world that resulted. Do the inhabitants still change with every dream, or do they reach a ‘final form’ and so reach a new status quo, allowing society a chance to adjust? It could be a fascinating new world, with new rules, as well as some unresolved issues as this coda makes clear.
9580582
Lol, no. I've never been so fucking done with a story as I am with this one.
And an interesting coda; thanks.
9580656
Sorry about that, though.
Beautiful; much more clear. Ignore the critics, you weaved a breathtaking story. I'll admit I was left unsure on the last chapter, mostly out of confusion. But this chapter finally let the whole story click. Thank you for your beautiful words.
Got to agree with 9579925; for me at least, the coda made the whole story quite a bit better.
I quite enjoyed it, personally. It's an interesting story, and very well told. It's certainly very evocative, as these comments sections can attest.
My interpretation is that, in many ways, these changes are representative of changes that the ponies in question could have gone through if the original show hadn't mostly held their characterizations in place. Applejack wanting to be free of the bindings of farm and family and Fluttershy becoming assertive to the point of forwardness are the most obvious two, but the others go through similar changes, just realized in ways that seem disconcerting because they're happening all at once.
Notably, those two are the ones that Twilight seems to care the most about, being the only changes that involve personality changes, even though ultimately Applejack's physical changes are among the most tame. Ultimately I think that's what this extra chapter is about, the fact that, despite all the physical changes and the changed reality, the biggest change to Twilight's life was the one friend who primarily changed their mind, rather than their body.
They've changed. In years to come, children will be born where these things are naught but mundane. Right now, the wonder and awe is something being relished.
Broken things can be beautiful, but that doesn't make them not broken.
9580656
You can please some of the people some of the time... but whether people love it or hate it, that was still some fine writing!
I love this continuation. It has a beautiful, though somber, melody to it.
And apparently watching half of Silence of the Lambs has made me poetic.
This story, its ending(s), and everyone's reception of it makes The Archetypist one of the most controversial works on this site. I love it! I've never seen a comments section so formally at ends. It makes me feel like this story did something spectacular, for better or for worst.
It was a rollercoaster all the way through and is definitely going in my Dean's List.
I still want to know where Spike is. And Celestia, I suppose.
I need to, like, sit in a corner and just reflect on this story--perhaps for a long while. It's absolutely haunting.
Also, minor typo:
This is really a wonderful work. There's so much depth here - so many metaphors to connect together and with the overarching theme (dreams, desire, change). And those dream sequences!
I'm ruminating over:
The effects of the changes on Twilight (blinded by light yet still can see everything clearly) with her metaphor of that happened to dreams (shadows / archetypes as a conceptual objects between light sources / people being severed) and that's connected to what dreams mean to Twilight - possibly her desires / attachment to order / inability to accept the new world changes / desire for Celestia's approval.
– some kind of double entendre? Twilight may have been ignoring her friends deep desires all along. Her old eyes were only good for seeing what she wanted to see (fragments and re-arrangements of archetypes), so she doesn't need them anymore. Perhaps she was the archetypist in the old world. In the new world she has to have a different means to see ponies for what they really are.
I want to work out how any of that may relate to The Celestial Messengers.
But I'm not asking for you to spell it out for me. After all, that would defeat the purpose. Just want to give you some of my thoughts.
I think the depth here may go beyond your audience. Much of it is beyond me. Many connections all over different resolutions of this story make it deep and beautiful, but also intense in a way that many may not expect or be prepared for.
It could be too ambiguous in places (How Twilight figured it out in the end?). Maybe it gives too much away in others (Twilight's explanation to Discord on severing the connections between ponies).
I suspect much of the understanding here, with dreams, desires, the unconscious and people changing isn't going to come through some propositional knowledge epiphany from playing detective with themes, metaphors and events in the story. I suspect that there's perspectival and participatory knowing behind your inspiration here. The reader really has to ask themselves, if unbound by reason, nature and history – what would they want to become? How would they want others to see them? What would their unconscious turn them into? Could an individual really predict how those closest to them would answer these questions?
The only thing conserved in this change is that conscious self and perhaps memory, even though it's deeply connected to everything else in the mind that the individual may want to change, like their own intelligence, intuition, self-image, self-deception, responsibilities etc..
Don't be discouraged. Anyone who thinks this is going to all come together for them once they reach the end of the story is obviously not your target audience. After all, there's a reason why Aesop wrote fables, Plato wrote dialogues, and you won't spell it all out for them. Jung would be proud.
I don't think I ever read any other story that's first person Twilight. That's a tough place to write from, and I can see why this story had to be told from there. The fact that you managed to cook this up and pull it off is really something. Eye-opening!
I really enjoyed it.
But it's not over for me - I'll be thinking about it for a while
We can't have nice things. Not without sacrifices.
Wow. Incredible.
I wonder what Celestia's dreams were.
Curious and good story, but I wonder about the dreams of Spike and Celestia or the crusaders...
This was beautiful. And horrible. But mostly beautiful.
Not a fan of the ending, but then again, after a certain point, maybe reading about Twilight picking Discord's side would have felt even worse in the end? Bitter, definitely.
I have never down-voted one of your stories before. I might not have done so on this story if you had been honest and added some combination of the Dark, Horror, and/or Tragedy tags, but I might well have skipped reading it, too. (Still... no down-vote in that case, either.)
As it is, I feel that I was enticed to read this under false pretenses, and I am expressing my displeasure with a thumbs-down. I was honestly going to leave it at that, but I recalled the many author comments that asked for an explanation for a negative vote. I don't know if you've ever requested such, but I thought you deserved to know. There certainly wasn't much to complain about with the actual craft of the story.
9593562
I can't complain about that. It seems to be one of the more prevalent reasons people have for downvoting. I felt the drama tag was the most appropriate, and I still do. I strongly disagree that either Horror or Tragedy would be right. I guess, of them all, I could have tagged it as Dark, but when I think of the stories I've read with that tag (Fallout: Equestria, for instance), they don't feel like this story felt to me.
That said, I absolutely support your right to disagree and vote however you desire, and I apologize if you feel like I tricked you into reading something that made you uncomfortable. While I've historically been opposed to 'trigger warnings' as a matter of principle, my opinion has softened a bit over the years, and I'm increasingly coming to accept that they're just something that readers expect these days.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this story. Never have I seen a story that makes me feel so.. Weird.
On one hand, I find the concept of this story extremely interesting, it's well written and the characters are all well done.
But at the same time, like many others I see this story as a dark one, bordering horror at some point. It doesn't help that the ending is... Pretty terrifying to me. Dreams are not real for a reason, and the idea that they can affect reality is something that I feel is more horror than just drama.
Though in the end I see it as a really good story, if I knew of the ending before reading it, I wouldn't have given it a chance, but at the same time the ending doesn't deserve a tragedy tag since... Well for the characters it is a good ending. Just not for anyone not directly involved in it... Or Discord.
Only one point I'm sad about is the non-existence of Spike and Celestia, I mean I honestly feel like Twilight doesn't give a single fuck about them.
Good story. Pretty crazy ending, I think they all just kinda descended into a state of madness, or getting drunk off their own dreams, even if those dreams seem pretty selfish and uncaring for the others already in their lives. After all, if everyone's gone mad, who will be sane enough to tell them so?
For the vast majority of the story, I believed Twilight was dreaming. I am not entirely convinced she wasn’t at the end, and feel that every time she went to sleep she fell further into her dream. The story took on qualities that are often present in dreams, such as an unreliable narrator affected by her own consciousness inside the dream.
I found the ending uncomfortable and dark, a harsh and brutal ending. I didn’t like it at all, but I wouldn’t dare ask you to change it, because then it would reframe the entire narrative, and that would be a shame.
Our dreams reflect ourselves, at times, something that can bring elation or horror. You didn’t leave a happy ending. Our dreams don’t always end in happiness, and sometimes we wake up screaming into a void that doesn’t care to hear us.
Fascinating topic, interesting story. Thank you for sharing it.
P.S. Sultry Flutters made me breathe just a little heavier than normal. Nice work.
So...basically, Applejack secretly deep down hated her farm, hated her family, hated her friends, and even hated being an Earth Pony so much that the first chance she got she ditched all of them so she could do whatever she wanted?
So how many ponies are dead now? I mean, Pinkie wished the Cakes out of existence, Trixie isn't real anymore either...
Lots of people have lots of very strong feelings for this story. I do to.
Because this is probably the most well written story I've ever read, bar none. Seriously, this was just epic.
On a side note, I REALLY love how you wrote Discord. Most authors just show him making everything literal. You actually made him chaotic.
That, ... was really really good
The writing in-the-moment is superb, but IMO the story has some issues with the over-arching plot:
On the plus side, the conclusion is present (even before the coda) and actually resolves the main conflict of the story. That is my main issue with earlier CiG stories: the themes were interesting and writing was great, but the ending would either be completely absent or derail characters and not accomplish much. I'm glad to see that it's not the case here.
As for the coda, I'd actually expect the characters to keep changing because their new selves will experience new problems and will get new aspirations. But it's optional anyway, so nothing to complain about there. I just wish it was established in the main story that Twilight can still see clearly with her final change.
This story is beautiful and uplifting.
A personal take on this story is that Discord's snap didn't remove archetypes. It extracted Twilight from her status as the main character. The whole story is her reckoning and acceptance that she's not the master of the Jungian wheel of archetypes anymore. Archetypes revolved around her as the main character. She wishes--and Celestia wished it for her before she could--for companions that could fit specific roles, could serve as stepping stones on her journey to achieve her own journey--that of a master of the wheel, a spark, a goddess, a princess of friendship. Twilight upended fate by accepting to not be that master and break the cycle. She rejected the tethering of archetypes to a persona, her persona or even any persona--be it Celestia, Luna, Sombra, etc. She set everypony free by rejecting the binding of anyone to her persona, that of a main character.
Thank you for writing this. I loved it!
So, about Celestia — I got it! She has become the one with the Sun. Merged with it. Became it.
And, for good measure, wished for it to be imprinted on everypony's subconscious, as the mere fact without any doubt or need to worry about.
"I will still love you, for eternity, my little ponies".
Beautiful. Sometimes the best art is presented through absence.
(Even if the author had no such implications :) )