Everypony is telling us, “It’s so amazing you two got Princess Luna to be the Mare of Honor at your wedding! And Princess Celestia as a guest!”
Everypony is meaning, “How in Tartarus did you, two middle-class mathematicians of no apparent social connections, achieve the social coup of the decade, upstaging all of the Canterlot aristocracy and peerage?”
The short answer is, “We made friends with somepony lonely and hurting who needed a friend.”
The long answer? Well, Princess Luna has given me permission to tell you the story. The entire story. Even the dark bits, from her foalhood. Which, I warn you before you begin, are dark. But I promise the ending is happy—after all, look at our wedding pictures! Have you ever seen a picture of Luna with such a big smile on her face?
Sequel to A day in Canterlot Juvenile Court, but can be read independently.
Story inspired by a comment by Veylon at the prequel. Thanks!
now this is a great story!
one thing I half to say about this...
... that is all...
well, I think she is trying way too hard. the way she talks about luna would make you think she has something personal against her.
... ok rule number one of pretending to be someone else stay off subjects that includes you...
wait a min... she is rich to the point that money is like air to her and she is a pony of power to the point where she has her own bodyguards, yet she has a day job she hates, working for someone she believes is the worst person in the world...
you know for somepony who is a mathematician her story just does not add up...
good thing they're not trying to corner her into telling them the truth
9511769
Thank you for the comments! I hope you will like the forthcoming chapters.
Regarding your specific point, I am tying to give ‘Merlot’ a social awakwardness arising from spending no time around normal ponies. i hope that that point is coming through.
I just read your prequel.
And now this story will join it on the top shelf of my Bookshelf.
9512243
Thank you! I hope this one can live up to your expectations.
Thanks for the follow!
Im just loving this Fanfiction. Pls never stop it! :D
9519292
you! Thanks!
This one is fairly short but I’m working on a novel set three months later. I hope to drop it in late spring or summer. (I have to write the whole thing before I drop the first chapter—that’s my process.)
Thankyou for your updates.
It's been almost a decade and fresh, untold history fics such as these still manage to appear.
'tis a good story so far.
9520215
Thanks! I’m polishing chapters 6 and 7 with a tentative drop mid-next week!
I guess I feel obligated to stick my oar in, given that the story is inspired my comment on the prequel.
The darkness has been considerably dialed back, way too much for my taste. Luna's injuries seem to come and go with all the import of hair dye. She has them, but they are irrelevant. The assertion that each cut, broken bone, and severed nerve left a wound on her soul is simply gone. They might as well be press-on tattoos at this point.
Her frequent absences from class are likewise irrelevant. Apparently, in-between fighting monster, recovering from fighting monsters, training to fight monsters, fighting monster in her sleep, carrying out her other royal duties, managing the affairs of an uncountable number of noble holdings, she's managed to master an abstruse branch of mathematical practice while also mastering all the other learning, magical and mundane, necessary for her many, many jobs.
Now, I'm not going to say that it's impossible for her to earn a doctoral thesis in an amongst all the other things she has going on, but, as with everything else related to Luna in this fic, it's robbed of all gravitas. This ought to be a crowning moment of awesome for her, a vindication that she can rise above her role as Equestria's executioner, that she can contribute positively to the intellectual life of society. Such a moment deservedly belongs in the very last chapter as a capstone to her character arc in which she expended much in the way of tears, sweat, toil, and blood to achieve.
But when does this happen? Chapter 2. She scoops up the doctorate as part of a victory lap of which the emphasis is how goddamn amazing Luna is. Because that's what this story is. Luna is rich, smart, strong, confident, beautiful, and all-around wonderful in every way. Granted, that's a tune that many authors on this site are willing to play, but I'm sad to see that the unique themes of the prequel are being abandoned in favor of telling yet another tale of Luna Sue, Warrior Princess. I'd love to be proven wrong.
I'll have to see if the dark tales of Luna are as promised, though if it turns out she could hold her breath for an hour, I'm going to be upset.
Luna is 18??? I can under stand not counting the 1000 years on the moon, but that still seems young. Or is this an equivalent age, like Spike being a baby dragon despite all the years that have past because of their long life spans.
9522183
From the prequel:
In my defense, I hashed out this storyline before I saw “Horse Play,” which put the lower bound on Celestia’s age (1,111+a few).
9522077
Wow! Thank you very much for an excellent and well-considered comment. I shall ponder deeply upon these, and endevour to ensure the remaining chapters do not disappoint.
Again, and sincerly, this is an excellent comment and I appreciate your time and thoughts.
9522884
Darn show, always messing with fan fics.
9522972
I know, right? My kid controls the Netflix remote when we’re watching MLP, so I get them hella out of order, too. I’ve seen some episodes 50 times and Tirek once... (he’s scary to 6 year olds, apparently).
Omg. This story is so dark. And usually i dont like super dark edgy stories. But this one. I love. And idk
Its just sooooo........ Intriguing. Keep up with the great work!
9534200
Thanks! Dark and pathos is hard to do right. I'm glad someone is enjoying it!
Two confessions:
1. this story actually fell out of my backstory for a Luna novel I'm writing. Call this story set 3 months before that.
2. next chapter is the conclusion; not so dark
9534250
Cool! Cant wait to read it.
Welp, that was brutal.
9534506
....good brutal or bad brutal?
9534936
Good brutal.
Horrifying, which I detest in stories, but I could see what was beneath the words.
We could connect to Luna.
Good job.
9535244
Thanks! I hope the remainder can live up to expectations.
The f
ck man...
9536868
Sorry
9537541
Hey it works but damn
9537787
I was surprised by it myself
9538434
Hey that is the best kind of work, when you can surprise yourself in ways you don't even know how you did it.
This was such a great story. I love the way it Portrays Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.
Its such a Unique take on the two of them. And their pasts. At least it is to me. And did i Understand the author's Note? You are working on a Sequel of sorts?
9543397
Thank you for the kind words!
I've been working of the novel for about six months; both "A day in Canterlot Juvenile Court," and this story, are background to the novel, that I felt fit better as short stand-alones than as flashbacks in the novel.
Thanks again!
9543404
Your welcome! :)
Oh is it over already ?
What a beautiful story that was
Thankyou, dear author.
This is a story worth putting in print.
If I saw this on a shelf, I would buy.
9544477
Thank you!
I'm glad people enjoyed it.
I appreciate the encouraging words.
9546809
Cool!
I won't post chapter one until it's totally finished so please forgive me if I run late.
This was great.
I enjoy seeing different depictions of the princesses, and reallyI love this one.
And Luna, holy shit girl are you bad at disguises.
Looking forward to seeing what else you can come up with.
9547349
Thanks! I appreciate the kind words.
I vaguely wonder if she was trying, subconsciously, to out herself?
But I don't know.
9547404
Without a doubt.
This was a wonderful story. It went to some dark places but handled it well, I feel, and the telling of Luna's backstory was very in line with her characterization. Definitely looking forward to the sequel.
Amusingly, I'm writing this comment while waiting for a plane to take me away from a conference where I just presented a novel algorithm based on the concept of approximating a matrix with one of lower-rank (though asking me to do any eigendecompositions beyond size 1 in my head would be beyond me) while nursing a minor fencing injury I received from some aggressive swordplay. Fortunately, that's where my similarities to Luna end.
9681944
Glas you enjoyed! Good luck at the conference!
OK, I hope more people wander in here from *cough* elsewhere, because this is well done.
9817699
Thanks!
And suddenly a scene pops into my head...
"Finally, someone who knows how to cook real food! I'll have the bacon-wrapped mushrooms, and the prime rib just under medium-rare."
"You're seriously going to order that while we're here?!"
"Look, how many times do I have to tell you? Humans are omnivores. It's technically possible for us to live as vegans, but it takes very careful planning, and even then we can develop deficiencies which aren't obvious until the damage is irreversible. Most of the cultures who historically lived that way were "cheating". Due to poor food hygiene, they were actually ingesting enough contaminants like dung and insects to supplement their "vegan" diets. On the other hand, we can survive on just meat and animal products as long as we eat enough fat and raw organs."
"That's horrifying. What kind of monster are you?"
"Let me tell you about humans, using something I'm familiar with in anthropology. When a Shoshone warrior wants a pony, he goes to a herd, picks one, and walks toward it. Naturally, the pony runs away. The Shonone follows, day and night just walking, usually for three full days. Pony runs away, man just keeps walking at a steady pace. Finally the pony simply collapses from exhaustion after running away for days, and the man walks up and puts a bridle on it. That is the kind of monster humans are."
So Luna is a mirror-image Mike Harmon (complete with one use of nukes to eliminate her enemies). Cool.
Ohh!! Almost missed this one. Another amazing read! I love that she found some pones to see her, the good and the bad.
9522077
To me, it seemed more like Alicorns in general are like that in this story.
Remind me, where is statistics supposed to go? Science department perhaps?
Also, is the Luna war story going to appear at any point? It is an intriguing premise and your other war fics are well written.
10292047
the Luna novel is a hot mess. I plan to rewrite it someday, but good lord, it's past my skill level at the moment. I won't deliver something I'm not proud of, so I keep working on my skills until I'm ready to retry it.
Well, because I read some other of your stories first, this was easier to endure. I don't mean that in a bad way either. It was an well written imagination of Luna. Though I could really be angry with what you put her through. One of the toughest I've read. I saw when you answered RDT's question about your Luna novel that the Luna novel is on 'hold' due to perceived lack of "skills." I would disagree with that perception, you've done a fantastic job with the stories I've read so far, especially the Red Heart Trilogy. I look forward to your Luna novel. Thank you for entertaining me.
Ooof.
THAT was hard to get through...my headcanon doesn't have the Princess of Kind Dreams ANYWHERE in that space. Her near CONSTANT interventions with the CMC's put her far from this particular version with me, and that little tiff with the...Tantibus...shifts it even more.
The thing about Fimfiction is how MANY shades and nuances characters take on under different author's pens. My Celestia, for example, is NOT a "morning pony". Faded sun-yellow bathrobe, fuzzy pink slippers on her hooves, a different coffee mug every morning, including one that reveals the words, "Let Twilight Handle It" when it heats up, a joke gift from Luna. She's an avid Buckball fan, and absolutely adores 'her' Canterlot Nobles, to the point of being a Official Merchandise walking billboard...
Derpy is my mathematics Luna...
And, I'll have something to say about the last episode, a setting sun, and no gizmo or lit horn with Princess Sparkle...
We all see them differently. That's the fun.