Music Lovers507 stories ·908 members
Supporting Original Characters4,072 stories ·1,824 members
Extremely Unsettling536 stories ·491 members
Equestrian Historical Society634 stories ·824 members
Protect Celestia1,762 stories ·1,945 members
The Usual372 stories ·55 members
Inspired By Music496 stories ·285 members
Celestia Is The Best Pony2,579 stories ·2,888 members
When some of the stained glass windows at Canterlot Castle are destroyed, Princess Celestia must find an artist to replace what was lost.
Edited and proofread by Cynewulf. The cover art has been edited by me. Buy this story! Contribute to the TVTropes page!
Page generated in 0.098 seconds
Total duration
884 users online
472,425 hits today, 1,960,719 yesterday
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I rather enjoyed this. Brings an interesting perspective to those who do the art for the castle. You get a like from me.
10319963
I'm sorry sir, but reading Ice Star stories is illegal.Thank you for reading! I'm surprised I got a comment this quickly.
10319972
I'm a fast reader.
10319975
I always have 107 other stories for that.
A fic entirely made of letters. Seems fitting, since I'm at a loss for words as to how good this fic is myself.
Not often is Canterlot explained in a day-to-day manner in a way that's so captivating, but it happens here. Only tweak I'd ever offer is in Rosie Tint's response. She's certainly up to exacting standards when regarding the Nightmare Moon pane, but it does feel a bit of a contrast to the way she reverently speaks of Celestia, if only a little bit. However, she's a joy to see write, and I only hope we can see her glasswork soon. If anypony needs a picture or ten dedicated to her craft, it's her, to put her on the same level as craftspony O.C.s as Torque Wrench, High Gear and Littlepip.
Here's hoping the windows stand clear for many years to comes, and this fantastic fic does the same. Good work, Ice Star.
10320099
She has no idea who Nightmare Moon/Luna is. Hence her odd manner by the end. She legitimately thinks that Celestia is asking for what is at best a fairy tale about a made-up creature to be put alongside the triumphs of Celestia. Note that she only refers to them as the triumphs of Celestia, when Luna would have obviously been there too.
Thank you very much! I hope you enjoy my other stories too. As for the window, they're the windows that we see in seasons one and two. They're still there.
10320086
It's that an invitation, or a dare?
10320211
Why not both?
That last one must have been like a shard of glass right to Celestia’s heart.
10322253
I see what you did there.
Where is the sadness of Celestia, as she realizes that she needs to plan for her sister's return somehow, perhaps hearing of some unicorn whose power level is off the charts, and wondering if she can finally put some plans into motion?
Stories along the lines of "My lost sister" do something to my heart, sorry.
10323139
This takes place centuries before Twilight's grandparents would have even been born. She's not thinking of if she'll ever get Luna back (and at this point Celestia doesn't know). The letters are dated to show that they only take place two hundred and thirty-seven years into Celestia's reign alone.
Okay. The timing here is... interesting, because Luna seems to have been entirely forgotten about very quickly here. These letters are dated 237 Solar Reign, so two centuries and a bit into Celestia's reign -- but where does this calendar begin counting? Is it Nightmare Moon's defeat? But the last reply seems too unfamiliar with the idea of a second, dark alicorn as a concept to suggest that even that's been remembered by anybody, otherwise Rosie Tint would have brought it up instead of casting about for possible identities of this strange, unfamiliar figure. If so, then why count down from there at all? Why base your calendar on something you have no memory of at all?
It could instead count down from when Celestia rose to the throne at first, since Discord is clearly still remembered, but this narrows the interval between the letters and Nightmare Moon's defeat even more -- going by the show itself, Celestia's been raising and setting the sun for 1,111 years precisely, so that can't leave more than a century between the end of the first diarchy and these letters. In that case, Luna's disappearance from the popular consciousness was quick. Even a couple centuries is a short time for this, but her completely vanishing from history in one is... something.
So that raises the question of why this happened to begin with. How much was deliberate on Celestia's part? How much was accident? Did she deliberately scrub her sister from history, or merely let ponykind's tendency to ignore whatever's further than a lifetime ago and the next town over lose track of Luna? But then, why is Discord remembered? And that also raises the question of where ponies got the idea that Celestia led them from the windigos... then again, if history has been misremembered so thoroughly, it may well be that we're still 237 years after Nightmare Moon's defeat and popular consciousness has simply taken to assuming that a lot less time passed between Discord and now than actually did.
I think I would have liked to see Celestia's reply, because regardless of the reasons for why Luna was forgotten Celestia choosing to depict her in that window has implications. It doesn't make any sense for her to do so if she wanted Luna to be forgotten, so I wonder... just what did she think when she read Rosy Tint's letter and realized just how things stood now?
10323247
You got that right. I was a little worried that the story wasn't clear and that it fell in the realm of the vaguely defined area of 'too subtle'.
From the year that Nightmare Moon was defeated, more or less.
If you look at the titles that Celestia has, the answer is in there. Nightmare Moon may be thought of as no more than an old nonsense tale, and Princess Luna has never existed according to Equestrian history. But her titles give Celestia the epithet of one who makes the night 'pale' and to 'pale' something can mean to overpower or diminish it. There is at least memory that the night has been severely diminished and weakened, but it's attached to Celestia as if it were heroism instead of a tragedy only one equine in Equestria knows. So, that's the first year that the calender would be using, when the night was first 'paled' by Celestia.
I'm not sure where you're getting this number. It wasn't stated in the story, nor is it the one I use. It doesn't have any bearing on the story here. If you're actually curious about the timeline/how old the sisters are, then I can rifle through my notes or throw out a few links, but that's another matter altogether.
I left this open-ended for the reader. New readers will get to come to their own conclusion, but recurring readers of mine will know this fits in a larger picture of things, and one where those questions are answered. If you want the answers, they're fairly lengthy but I could PM them (or related stories) to you, if you would like. But that aside, the questions you have are those that the reader is supposed to, but whether you see them as (possibly) horrifying or just a tragedy is for you.
Celestia and Luna were present when the tribal ponies of the north migrated away from the windigos in my stories. Or, at least all the ones in the main continuity. It's not an especially significant detail except that it has been altered here, as other historical details are, to only include Celestia.
I actually wanted to add a letter sent in reply. However, my editor thought the story was fine without it.
I really like your comment. Thank you for taking the time to let me know all the musings you had about my story. Seeing long comments like this really makes my day.
10323247
I guess it started before Nighmare Moon
Was there meant to be a competition of portfolios between the first two letters? If so, you may need to alter the dates to show some time passing. Otherwise, an interesting read. Thank you for sharing it.
10369291
The first two letters were sent on the same day within the same city. The portfolio is implied to be pre-existing. As an artisan, Rosie would have to keep copies of sketches and illustrated results of her work at hoof.
Pretty interesting perspective on things.
10374201
I’m hoping that’s a good interesting haha 👀
Overdone
10552199
Could you elaborate on which part of this is allegedly overdone? A one-word comment isn't especially helpful feedback. I've also never read a story that utilized these ideas, which was part of why I wrote it.
10552199 You ordered medium-rare, right? I’ll talk to the chef.
The no ponys daughter one sounds neat did ya write that before or
10624000
It’s written and can be found in my stories.
Huh, wasn't expecting a story made entirely of letters. Your Iceverse stories have unique patterns of speech and mythos that are always fun to read, and these were no exception. I was wondering when I'd find the gut punch, given the story's tags (and your deliberate tagging), and, boy, did you deliver. The fact that Rosie has literally no idea who Luna is, indicating deliberate removal of her from history books/teachings/etc., makes this doubly heartbreaking for Celestia when she's trying to honor the sister she'd lost. Talk about fiddlin' with my heartstrings, my dude.
10648187
Huh, wasn't expecting a story made entirely of letters.
I've done some larger story sections, entire chapters, and whats-it in the format before. It's always been one I enjoyed, though Sunset Shimmer's -phobia story probably made the best use of it, and that's including stuff like Don't Make a Shadow of Yourself in there with "written entirely as a story within a story" sorta stuff. Epilostary. Whatever.
Really? Okay, wow, I'm incredibly super flattered. It means so much that any writer I would admire is this dedicated to picking up on my lore, and enough to call it unique too!
It's only a fiddle because you like bluegrass, nyeh.
10648210
Oh, I know you've done letters-only stories before (I've read at least two others). I'm just saying this format was a pleasant surprise from what I expected of the description.
It doesn't help that I'm listening to a Tyler Childers album while I'm writing this comment...
10648216
You won't be calling what I can do with a diary/letter format pleasant a few stories from now. I'll bet on it.