The age of ponies is over.
For centuries, Princess Celestia has kept the peace in the world with the power to raise the sun and the moon. Now that she has been injured, the forces of darkness that have lain silent seize their opportunity to rise up and take total control.
When Canterlot falls, so too falls Equestria. The only hope for Equestria is the Elements of Harmony, but they have been scattered across the globe, and only a select few know how they can be found. Spike and the Cutie Mark Crusaders must set forth on a quest to gather the magical artifacts. Only with their full power can they hope to stand against the Unseelie Court of Fae.
Meanwhile in Equestria, Applejack and her allies must battle against the Sirens, an evil once thought defeated, who now rule over the land with devious intent. When the Sirens' song holds the power to control the very will of mortal creatures, how can she hope to stand against their might?
The final chapter in The Heart's Promise Continuity begins now...
Rated Teen for
Violence
and
Muchas Smoochas
Part of The Heart's Promise Continuity
Lord Mayor Applejack
Fahr Drill
The Unmitigated Disaster
Scootaloo Will Fly!
Nature in the Wild
DayBreak
Lightning Struck Home
In the Absence of Sunset Shimmer
An Equestrian Griffon
If You Weren't Afraid
The Worst Kept Secret
Rhythm and Rhyme
In the Absence of Twilight Sparkle
The High Pariah of Breezy Bastion
The Heart's Promise
It's here.... YES!
... That's a lot of characters.
My boy Spike gets top billing though, somehow.
Everyone was pleased with that.
Well, not everyone everyone.
Have I been overestimating how tall Spike is?
Or is Spike now more or less normal pony sized, comparing himself to two very large ponies?
I must say that this story intrigued me.
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At long last, the moment we've all been waiting for!
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Yeah, I found that the list just kept going.
I was at first only going to put up A and B-tier list characters, but I also realize it's nice to be able to go to this chapter to check on the more obscure people like Snowcap or Bean Sidhe. A quick who-what-where breakdown.
And I also realize that I forgot some of the smaller names, so I'm gonna have to update the list again.
It's finally time for him and Apple Bloom to be the major protagonists of a longform doorstopper novel! And their friends, but I have to be honest, it's mostly centered around them taking the leadership role, like Twilight and Applejack do whenever they lead adventures.
The people who liked it will like it all the more, and the dark fairies who will have to contend with our favorite dragon will just have to deal with it.
You're actually probably not too far off with how large Spike is in your imagination. He's a head shorter than Apple Bloom while on his hind legs, and two heads shorter when on all fours. He's a little taller on all fours than your average-sized mare.
I guess Apple Bloom and I got a little too flowery with our "towers over" descriptive language. I apologize.
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I daresay that you shall find more to like in the coming chapters. I hope you enjoy yourself!
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I was reasonably off, I kinda imagined Spike was more massive than most ponies, instead of "basically the size of a pony".
Two heads taller when on all fours, and not a lot different when on hind legs is pretty significantly larger for Apple Bloom. Actually uh... I'm not sure how that works? Unless his torso is very short? Oh, or maybe he sits only a little forward and his arms are long?
Wait, they explicitly vote against those things? They explicitly don't want that? They put the money for maintenance into parties explicitly? It's an actively destructive strategy!
Well, I mean maybe there's a point. You have towns that are being run like crap, and the leadership is dying, and it's at the brink of wars, and I'm sure a lot more corruption lies beneath the surface.
But maybe if you squint real hard you might look and say "hey at least some of this is the Unseelie's fault..."
And Merry must know this. She must know she's causing the problems that are recruiting people.
But alas can she put two and two together for herself? It's wild that somehow she's become the most sympathetic of the Sirens after all this time.
We're in the endgame, now.
I've read through this entire series over the course of about a week, and I have to say it's definitely become one of my favorites of any fanfiction ever. I applaud you, and I look forward to seeing where the Grand Finale takes us! We're only three chapters and already have a named character death (I think that's a record for this series), so we might as well get the counter started.
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It's mostly that his skeleton is in a transition between the mostly human-like of baby dragons, towards the mostly cat-like of adult dragons. As such, his hind legs don't really support his weight all that well, and he spends most of his time on his hind legs kinda half-sitting. Thus, the
waddlelumber. Having wings would help balance him, but my Spike is currently wingless.No, no, you misunderstand! The money was originally for Town-Wide Celebrations, Applejack just co-opted it for maintenance! Now everything's back the way it was supposed to be.
It's easy to vote against "hard work, cooperation, and diligence" when the alternative is "having fun, doing your own thing, and letting someone else deal."
That is of course the insidious thing about Merry Mare, that she is willing to cause these problems if she can use the dissatisfied people to achieve her own goals. It's wonderfully hypocritical.
One can hope, RadicalDishonesty. One can hope...
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I'm glad you've enjoyed your time here! I've been enjoying it quite a bit myself.
It depends on if you count Aria Blaze, who died before the opening of In the Absence of Sunset Shimmer. It also depends on if you count OCs, which means that Berkut dying in the prologue would take the cake.
Either way, expect to see a few dead bodies before the end!
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It's not just that, it's that she is not making the connection that if she is seeing the Unseelie cause the problems that is being manipulated.
And she has a problem, from her past...
That it could be the same thing going on, with the Unseelie causing it which us as an audience know is true.
Of course, her own willingness to do just the worst stuff is also pretty awful. She does seem to know not to trust them, at least.
I wonder how honest the belief that turning over Equestria to the fae would be a move that would be good for anyone anywhere is.
And with that we have the third named character to die this fic: the Tree. It seems likely that there are many more to come.
At first when she took the scale I thought she was going to go polyjuice.
I mean who wouldn't want to be a dragon?
Gathering the players is still going on, but I'm liking where this is going.
Good chapter! Can't wait to see what happens next.
Good chapter! I like how you're incorporating religion without it being overbearing. And it's nice to see the Knights of Harmony again.
Okay. That scene with Applejack and Celestia hit me pretty hard.
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It's important to understand how Andean thinks, and why he thinks that way, and what he's going to do about it. If somebody reads a fairy story such as this and balks at the spiritual elements, I might question just what genre they think they're reading.
(High Fantasy with a soft magic system and a heavy supernatural emphasis, for those who wish to know)
The most complete world building is going to include faith as well. I've kept no secrets since Lord Mayor Applejack that I have a story that goes back to the very beginning of this planet they call home, the creation of it, and I'm excited to finally get to tell it. In the fashion of greater authors than I, I'm writing a mythology as well as the story that draws from it.
I would hope that it would only ever be overbearing if I spent too much page space meandering without coming to a point. Like any plot point. If I can spend an entire chapter of If You Weren't Afraid in the afterlife, surely I can write about a griffon king's lonely visit to an empty chapel.
I couldn't just leave out my favorite OCs! They might not feature as much in this story as the ones where they were the main characters, but they still have a roll to play in the grand finale of the series!
There be more to come on that front, I tell yah. But also fluffier stuff.
And the casts come together.
Now things get interesting.
How many chapters long will this chapter be?
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It's only been 80,000 words and a whole year, no biggie.
Right? Now we can actually start seeing the stuff the story description talks about.
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Not sure about the amount of chapters, but the whole story's going to be about 250,000 words long. Maybe a bit more, once it's all said and done.
Ah, the villains.
I think I appreciate this framing more, with the reaction from Fluttershy, horrified, and even some of the villains understanding what's going on. I prefer this to the group of them as individual villains, reveling each in their own delusions.
Also it turns out Jeuk was the big bad all along. Lovin' it.
Naturally it's all also very awful, but I'm excited for it too, somehow.
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Yeah, me too. It's why Silver Spoon's part of last chapter was spent mostly summarizing, because I really didn't want to spend too long dwelling on their point of view. I also made sure to contrast their scene immediately with Spike and CO.'s basically doing the exact opposite of them, and with full dialogue at that. Overall, I've wanted very much for the heroes to be as interesting as--hopefully more interesting than--the villains. My little personal rebellion against how in media villains are allowed long monologues to show how very well-thought-out and reasonable their wicked deeds are, while heroes don't even get so much as a "No that's wrong and here's why you suck!"
Granted, it's because the villains are generally much more stylish than the heroes, so what can you do?
I hope it was a good twist. I'll admit that in the beginning, I had thought of them as separate characters, but by the time If You Weren't Afraid got rolling, I realized that Jeuk was better as more than just a second-in-command.
It's why villain songs are always the most catchy tune in the soundtrack. it gets you hyped! It gets you pumped! It says that things cannot stay as they are and big changes are coming! It says the table is flipped and the only thing that can stop them is a truly mighty hero (or group of heroes)!
Oh no
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Oh YES
I´ve been binging this series for the last days, and I love it!
I wanted to ask, can I translate it to spanish? I would like to see how good can I be at it
Hoo boy
“Creator, what—what happened?”
What happened, indeed...
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Thank you for the compliment!
I mean, my gut reaction would be that it sounds really cool, but it's kinda a weird gray area. Like, you can do what you want in the comfort of your own home, but I'm guessing you were thinking of posting the translation somewhere, yeah? It's basically putting my words in the hands of another. There's no way for me to really know if the translation is accurate since I literally couldn't speak Spanish to save my life (unless the only way to survive was to recite all the colors of the rainbow and count to twenty). I can't do anything that implies that it's an official translation, and it's sad because I'd like as many people to be able to read my stories as possible. Thank you so much for the offer.
Even saying that, however, I also can't stop you from just using the text for translation practice for fun. There's nothing stopping you from keeping your own documents and discussing it among friends/colleagues and stuff like that.
I'm curious how you'd translate my pun names and style choices and stuff. I've always been really interested in languages (especially etymology) even if I'm no good at learning them.
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This is where things start to go off the rails, so to speak.
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Fire, brimstone, maybe even death. Fun times, all told.
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I´ll use it as practice, thanks!
Oh, okay. Secret meeting called by Celestia. Okay, okay.
Oh.
Oh.
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Time to see how the meeting turned out!
It feels a little like the Siren's take a path of wisdom in a way.
The maiden is invincible and nothing can stop her, thinking of nothing but ambition. She has no idea what her master might do, and is focused on her own inner world and goals.
The matron understands the world better than before. She will guide it, she will heal it, but she doesn't entirely understand it. She thinks she understands her master, can get the better of him still, but does not know.
The crone understands very well, the one who has seen behind the curtain most accurately, and can speak to what the inner motives might lead her master to do.
Anyway it's a helluva chapter.
Jeuk's biblical allusions increase.
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That's a good insight. I kinda stumbled on the concept of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone archetypes while researching mythical beings, and found the concept lined up pretty well with the Three Witches trope that appears so much in media. In the same way as they represent three stages of life, they can also represent three stages of earning (or ignoring) wisdom. My next chapter is going to play with this more, following the path of wisdom someone takes as they also take their path through life.
I thought the concept of the archetypes was called "The Three Faces of Eve," but it looks like that just a TV Tropes entry and not necessarily a literary term EDIT: and "The Hecate Sisters" is more appropriate. But it's the concept I've built the Sirens out of... even if I've had to do a little squeezing here and there.
Like all edgelords (Ba'al Kitzoni?), he read half the Bible, picked out a few edgy phrases, and tossed the rest out when he was done.
Before I read this, I must know: How did the Dazzlings escape the Equestria Girls world?
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Details can be found here: In the Absence of Sunset Shimmer, which you've commented on previously. But also there are new Sirens who were introduced throughout the series, mainly in DayBreak and the last chapter of Scootaloo Will Fly.
With everything pointing towards Sweetie Belle being the next Bearer of Kindness, I'm wondering which of our heroes will be next. My head says Scootaloo gets Magic and Button Mash gets Laughter, but the others aren't so simple.
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Not saying exactly what i've been foreshadowing, but I've perhaps been foreshadowing certain things for each of the seekers since at least Scootaloo Will Fly!. Sometimes a little subtle, sometimes with the weight of a clue-by-four to the head. A lot of it has to do with word choices they've used when talking to each other and about each other.
The most specific foreshadowing I can remember mostly happens in Scootaloo Will Fly, Lightning Struck Home, In the Absence of Sunset Shimmer, and Rhythm and Rhyme. And here of course.
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My theoretical list has me wondering how you'll pull it all off, honestly.