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This is the story of the end. This is the story of the death of Equestria. It is the story of the reign of her royal majesty, Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Fading Sun.
The alicorn sisters are dead and Equestria has turned to Twilight Sparkle to guide it. However, just maintaining a dim sun a fraction as bright as her mentor's keeps the new princess near her limits.
Years have passed and Twilight Sparkle is sure of only one thing. Equestria is dying.
I haven't commented on a story yet, but here I am - this is absolutely fantastic! I adore how you gradually unfold what caused the current setting, rather than exposit-dump all at once. 
You've got yourself a track!
Of course, it helps that the "Princess Twilight" genre is my favorite. 
Here's to the next chapter, haha!
I especially liked the parts about wing biology, I must say.
I don't normally read sad fiction, but this has all the right components for good, dark mythology (that's why I can accept you openly embracing a MLP-cosmos in complete contradiction with everything we know about stars and planets). Twilight Sparkle indeed. I should have seen that coming.
Interesting story! Curious as to what the others are doing, and wondering if they have tried using the Element of Harmony to boost the sun...
Noticed a small punctuation error:
“Are your sides still bothering you. I thought they were just itchy?”
Misplaced question mark- The first sentence is the question.
>>124063 but see, the body isnt supposed to grow wings. it'd be like the skin is stretching out to a ridiculously painful extent, and then a crapload of feathers are exploding out. it sounds painful.
and even if its not, its more fun to write than "yo, cool, i gots me some wings."
incidentally, im going to read this story
i never thought alicorn twilight could be pulled off so well.. this is beautiful. honestly, i hope it gets really depressing cuz i havent read a good, manly-tear-inducing story in a while. you've got what it takes, i can tell. but i hope you take it there. good luck, my friend. 
So a magic being's appearance is dictated by their will, as is their immortality? So Discord looks that way specifically because he wants to look chaotic, and the winged unicorns look that way because they want to represent unity and power. Interesting. And any signifigantly powerful unicorn with enough will could become a winged unicorn and control celestial bodies. This is rather interesting, although winged unicorn Twilight is a bit over done, but because this is so good, I'll overlook it.
Look forward to seeing more of this.
There's a lot of punctuation errors in here, which is one of the first things that pops out right at me. Definitely would try to work on that if you could. I see a lot of areas where commas aren't being used when they should.
Idea is real good, and is executed even better, but there are some things that come into question. First off, I'm fairly sure when/if Princess Celestia and Luna die, the sun and moon will not just vanish. I really wouldn't be able to picture that, nor would I picture Twilight creating a new sun and moon. Also, I think the Princesses only had to raise the sun and moon, and then it would move on its own (However I could be wrong.)
I definitely like this story idea, but there are some points were I went: 
or where I facepalmed. May look into more chapters at a later time.
4 out of 5
If you were talking about chapter 2, I gave it another look. Hopefully a large number of them have now been purged.
Regarding the sun and moon, cannon wise we have very little information on the the full nature of celestial bodies in the show. Obviously the normal laws of physics don't apply or magic wouldn't be required at all.
Would you care to elaborate on what made you facepalm? Or where you just talking about the plethora of typos.
I think i understand a little,
the first chapter, it was describing a beautiful, very interesting and very real world, not a story with beginning and end.
i very much liked the settings, maybe more authors will like your universe and write their own stories, averting "death of some of those stories" you mentioned.
And thank you for this awesome chapter and a previous one ^^
I found a couple errors:
"It was only a mater of time." = "It was only a matter of time."
and in:
"The unicorn had heard how the griffons dealt with such crimes, but she did not think she could bring her self to do such a thing. "
= " . . . bring herself to do such a thing."
If she sped up the process for herself enough, during specific moments, she could probably avoid dealing with afflictions or temporary pains. Such as during the evening concentrating on allowing her wings to form much faster, or expanding the evening so that she'll have more power to practice with, or store up over time. How proficient she becomess with this time travel/manipulation/using the Eye of Harmony/what have you will be a major point, further distancing her from the 'common' people of Equestria. Twilight help the world when she loses her closest friends to quickly by her messing with time to much.
This is definitely an amazing idea for a fic and I'm glad to see you write it. You have a certain depressing realism that marks the story as something that had a lot of effort put into it. I'm always just really happy to see how much people have put into their stories, so if for nothing else (which there are many other things) thank you for writing this, for writing it and doing everything you have with it. It's time and effort like that that make me appreciate a fic, not whether or not the grammar was flawless or not. (silly grammar Nazi's. I suppose they have their place in the world though, somepony's gotta point that stuff out)
^ Oooooh, I like what I just said, that's good. It sums up a lot of my feelings about what to tell writers on FiMfic, because there's a lot of things I could cover, but it always come down to "Thank you for writing this". I need to remember that to put elsewhere, my own personal copy pasta! *clops hooves together* 
.
It's a really original idea. Every author puts Twilight as the ruler after Celestia but it's usually not so.... (well, this is punny) dark.
Not sure why my last sentence led me to this train of thought, but what do the other Mane 6 do in the Twilight-ruled Equestria? Dash is a commander, which is awesome 
. I kept saying "Dash is best commander" after the Hearth's Warming Eve episode. But anyways, would I be wrong to assume that the other Mane 6 are also important in their own right? Applejack can be head farmer or something, I don't know. Err, I'm sure you don't want to give anything away, but will we see more of the other Mane 6? Looking at the character tags and seeing only Twilight and Rainbow makes me sort of nervous.....
I can only assume that because Twilight's magic changes her so she can do what she "needs" to do, like live forever (and grow wings? but why?!? 
), she will just somehow become more powerful and make things better eventually. Unless you're actually planning on letting Equestria be destroyed. 
You sick, sick person. Shame on you. 
lol jk roflcopter soi soi soi soi 
If Twilight doesn't magically get a power-boost when she becomes a full-fledged alicorn something won't add up in my mind...... How did Celestia and Luna become so powerful then? I refuse to believe that they naturally had Twilight's power a hundred times over just by being born. In the process to becoming an alicorn there had to be something. I think. I have to admit it would just seem stupid if they simply were better than Twilight straight up. That kind of pre-destined stuff always bothers me a lot.
On another note..... Time. Twilight, I think you need to find Derpy's ocarina. 
Your problems have been solved. Problem, eternal twilight covered Equestria/shadow dragons? 
The time thing is an intriguing concept, though I would think bending the laws of time would probably be more stressful than creating a feasible ball of combustion floating in the air. I still can't wait! Tons of compliments, and have a long-flank comment! They're my specialty! 
Step 1: Create 365 Vegeta's.
Step 2: Convince one to self-destruct each day
Step 3: Enjoy your new Sun!
Its sad but I want to read more :) . I can imagine the Gala being very different since the night is dangerous now. Is it grimdark because of the possibility of writing about Twilight having to save a pony from dying from the darkness? Like I don't know maybe Rainbow Dash? I have no idea but is it "pluss" or is it "plus"? I thought you used only one "S" with it.
>>124063 It does hurt, right now my sister is in my pain because her bones are moving in her pelvic area for the baby. I always thought pregnant woman were hurting because the baby might have been to heavy. But they actually are having their bones and joints move just so that baby can form and pop easier.
This is probably the closest thing to an indisputable 5 star fic I've read to date. I counted maybe one or two things that bugged me, but they were mostly just different ways you could phrase some of the sentences, and isn't technically incorrect. Though I would love a bit more background as to how two immortals suddenly died after thousands of years of rule. Celestia's death story was good, but still didn't expand on what exactly happened to make her so weak in the first place. But I withhold my complaint until the next chap in case it is explained. Also, there's no reason you cant make four different stories out of your other ideas.
This is a great story, the darkness and gloom is really well done and pulls you in right off the bat. A slight distopian setting really instills the hopelessness I assume you were trying to convey. I look forward to more!
Hey, you know, you could always create four different stories; split it up into different timelines or something and cause a minor difference between the second chapter of each to have immense repercussions towards the end. Kind of like how some people write four or five different endings; you'd just be doing the same thing, except the endings are much, much longer.
(Heck, you could even make it so each separate storyline isn't so separate after all, and they end up crossing over somehow. Just a thought, though. It would be extremely difficult to pull off effectively.)
Anyway, liking it so far. Keep it up.
Pinkie is either dead or in sad mode, from a brief blurb, and the other 3 went the entire mother(mare?)hood path. I don't expect they are involved in the day to day politics of Equestria. I'm very interested to see if she does in fact grow more powerful for taking on the burden, or if she's basically capped already and just goes through the physical changes as an afterthought.
Griffins are nigh always considered the aggressors in these stories, and I agree they fit the bill, but the reality is one would think that they have entirely different diets. Stealing provisions from ponies can't be very effective. Eating ponies on the otherhand...
you wanted feedback- you shall have it.
I'd like to congratulate you on a number of things. First of all being the very first two sentenses.
I assume that this really not intended to be a funny story in any way but I encourage you to stitch in a joke like that every other thousand words or so sindce it always keeps at me going on reading much more eagerly when I sporadically enounter humor.
Furthermore on the elaborate and brilliant concept of the cause of immortality in your (let's call it) setting.
(and the transformation for that matter. Propably 'turning into a living representation of your kingdom'. The connection to (the land? and) people is a concept that also has potential.)
I pride myself to be a thoughtfull reader and this gives me ideas to chew on even after reading whatever is there, pondering the implications.
I'd like to specifically congratulate your RD for coming up with
the bucking revealation that she better makes sure to leave a proper replacement to 'keep the momentum going' after she croaks.
I guess that kind of agenda of all ponies fits Rainbow Dash truely the best :
Make sure everything goes well. Prepare for the time after your lifetime since your friend will still be there and need you!
This being the very core of her (Loyalty at it's finest- again, well portraied; even though at this point I propably just interpret much of it into it. Either way, this outlook too has potential.)
(I can totally see Rainbow Dash giving her best non-magically-powered impression of Twilight while 'with teeth and claw' refusing to die as long as the job 's not done.)
Alltogether great done. Even though I liked the writing a lot, I insist that that achievement pales in comparison to the creation of those concepts (and right now I really hope you came up with them yourselves or I just turned a praise into a downbeat.
)!
I'm VERY intrigued and can't wait to see what you have further up your sleeve/head.
5 / 5. pretty much flawless.
-Oh and a personal plead:
If you're planning to- pleeease do not outrule the idea of hydroponic farms just yet!
I'm basing so much hope on it as 'if everything else fails' / 'what would I do' -backup. 
A little more theoretical (well actually close to philosophical if you will) thought concerning
the whole 'see my friends age and die'-dilemma:
There's something that I've missed when reading other fic where it arises.
It usually goes like this:
Twi / whoever always loses her friends to time and is wounded more by every subsequent ponyfriend that goes.
Sometimes she comes up again, and a couple (or LOTS) of years later befriends somepony new.
And then again : see die. mourn. come around again. befriend. repeat. eventually break down and do whatever.
What I see as a solution is to speed up the sad part of the whole process to the point where there is always at least one close friend alive at any time(preferrably more) to help her get over the loss of the last one.
I know that sounds a lot like simply replacing, but really; The word betrays the fact that this does not mean that they mean less to her than their predecessors or that she does not take the memory of their friend for serious.
Just that she does not need to be alone when in the greatest time of need in order to prove to somepony (dead) that she cares/-d.
If you can't relate,
Imagine you're just about 10 yeqars younger than all of your friends.
Or if you move to another country/continent (sure you can IM and text them in that case but its just not the same and you know it so play along instead of trying to derail a metaphor. ) It's all pretty much the same problem- You'll need to come up with some new friends.
And to put the thing into another perspective - think about your parents or grandparents.
You likely will outlive them and you will get over it.
Except if you curl up and hide away, hanging on memories only.
There are working concepts for that, but you must return to living, laughing and loving for it to work. And seeing as that usually works best with other people.
'filling in the void' if you will, eventhough I still think people have problems to accept that they can be both individual, important and still -ultimately replaceable- (by people not being them!). What we aim here for is not to clone the old situation but create a new, desireable instead of letting the old one become a desolate, lonesome graveyard of memories.
At least that's what would piss ME off if my friends did.
Or a completely different, slightly strange approach:
Travel the world. Befriend everyone you meet (and like).
But don't do it to see the world, since at some point you'll have seen it all (except for the changes).
Do it for the people and leave a place after 10 or 20 years. But do leave before they die, giving you
- some means of controll to grant you the time you need to say farewell and
- spare you from the sudden impact that they are dead 'from now on', replacing it with the knowledge that 100 years later, the'll be long dead. But it dilates the shock over a long period of time.
I see that this might be something that requires a mindset that is hard to come by, but if you can pull it off, it's another theoretical way to cope. Goodbye being the key point
And for the sake of completeness- I know that I really mess up my typing at this time of the night. Beg your forgiveness for that.
Oh yes and do forgive me for the overlenghtly posts.. 
A fading Equestrian sun... Twilight Alicorn... ah yes, it's time at last for my little song.
The Last Alicorn
When the last pegasus dies by the dry rainbow fountain,
And Canterlot's broken towers finally fall from the mountain.
Through Apple Acres' leafless orchards, and the fields of withered corn,
She still walks the lonely pathways, as the last Alicorn.
Past the Everfree's river, silent of sea serpents' weeping,
Away from cold gemstone hoards, bereft of a dragon's greedy keeping.
In the failing light and silence, toward a bitter cold night's scorn,
There remains the shining sparkle, of the last Alicorn!
I'm alive! I'm alive!
When the dull crumbling moon wanes in the pale fading starlight,
And as each waning day ends in a weary purple twilight;
When Equestria's dying sun graces the last celestial morn,
O're the sickly scarlet sunrise, cries the last Alicorn!
I'm alive! I'm alive!
(sniffles) I broke myself up with this one. 
>>128902 Yeah, if it could kill Celestia and Luna, let alone somehow get around the Pinkie Sense, then it's gotta be pretty badass!
This just gets better and better.
Quite a few typos, but they really don't bother me that much. Mainly you mix up "where" and "were", like, "We were going out tonight" and "That's where we went."
E.g.:
"Some ponies where there because they had business to attended to, while others still where there" <-- both "where"s should be "were"
"She knew that the gathered ponies where likely questioning" <-- likewise
"Moon Dreamer's eyes where wide" <-- also likewise
And if a character has a multi-paragraph statement to say, you don't close the quotation marks at the end of the paragraph until the character has finished speaking (but you do re-open them in the next paragraph if they're still talking).
Aaaand, "Er, its quite all right you majesty." <-- That "its" is a contraction, "it is." So it is "it's." Also "your" majesty.
There's a few more but that's not really important!
Not bad, not bad at all. Sorry this turned into a grammar critique rather than a story critique 
Really, REALLY looking forward to see where this story heads!
" If she was luckily her knew tea might help her relax." Her knew "T"? Whatever this knowledge she knew is, I wonder why it helped her relax? (I know that was bad, but believe me, trying to be punny with word errors is hard. . . )
The most incredible thing, and the thing I like the most, about this story is how possible this all is. It reminds me of "World War Z" with how possible it is. The way you present the idea makes it seem like it could really happen, as depressing and/or far-fetched as it is. The story holds my attention mainly because of that, otherwise I would find it sort of boring or slow. Yay for your awesome idea! I like where this is going! 
Addition to my last comment:
>>129160 Sorry, I forgot to address your questions in the author's note! 
Thanks for the spoilers, first of all. 
Next, for the character tags, I would say that Rainbow Dash has been justified since she's been in every chapter in one way or another so far. Definitely put OC up there, Moon Dreamer sounds like he's going to be in a lot of the story, or at least in a few chapters of it. When it comes up, add the other member of the Mane 6 who becomes important to the story. That makes sense, right? I hope that helps!
Lastly, pfft! I should be thankful you've given me something this amazing to comment on. Remember that we couldn't comment and help you if you hadn't done anything in the first place, so thank yourself! Besides, you're embarrassing me!!!!
I know that this story might be almost painfully slow and methodical. I mean, its going to be around word 15000 when I first introduce a third member of the mane six (you can sort of extrapolate from that what the total length of the story might be), but I am glad you are enjoying it.
BTW, I was a big fan of World War Z, and every book I enjoy shapes my writing style.
Don't mind the grammar critique at all. Funny enough, all the errors you pointed out had appeared in the last five minutes of me 'editing' things into the chapter. Despite appearances, I'm actually pretty good with grammar. At least that's the story I'm sticking to. It's just that the pace I write fiction at really doesn't involve me paying attention to what I write - just need to get the ideas on the page as it where.
You didn't miss anything, just drawing it out for suspense. Hopefully chapter 4 will answer some of your questions.
Hmm, maybe I need to remap the end of the story, javascript:smilie('');
ARG, just realized that I forgot two sentences in chapter 4 about Twilight's sides hurting. Going to go back and add them now.
It only takes you three hours to write and edit these chapters 
? It would take me at least five. I envy you, sir.
At this point, once again, it'd be stupid to NOT have Rainbow tagged as a character. She's showed up all the time in this story, definitely counts. My money's on the new Mane 6 character deserving to be tagged as well, but we'll see. You seem uncertain enough about it that it probably the doubt probably holds some merit.
In terms of the actual story: That "bad news" doesn't sound good..... I know that it never is, but given the feel of this story I have a feeling it'll be extra bad, especially since I don't have a clue what it could be about. At least in shipping fics I know when shit's about to hit the fan, because it's almost always pretty obvious. Well played, good sir. I am intrigued, and being intrigued is a very good thing!
First of all I'd like to say that I am enjoying this tale far more than I expected to at the start. Second I would like to express the concern of burning yourself out. There is no need to rush yourself to complete things. Lastly My personal speculation as things stand is that the dark Alicorn that Twi erased was in fact a future version of herself going back in time. I suspect this based solely on the hints that Twi might have time manipulation abilities and that the dark Alicorn didn't want to do the things it did. I'm probably waaaaay off base though so feel free to ignore me.
Reading used to be my favorite thing to do, you know, for years. I sort of stopped for a while, though some high-quality works have finally become available to me again. This story of yours is shaping up to be every bit as delightful as some of my most favorite books- I'm more rapt than I've been in ages. Keep up the good work- you have a new fan in me!
>Lastly My personal speculation as things stand is that the dark Alicorn that Twi erased was in fact a future version of herself going back in time
Yeah, that was my guess as well.
It's a kind of cliche plot twist, though, so hopefully there's something else going on...
*squee* It's a wonderful story. One of the bright points of my day, honestly.
Don't feel bad about your writing speed. You have a gift. I've completed precisely one fanfiction in all my attempts. And it's only ever gotten one review. Not a MLP fanfic, mind you; I'm relatively new to the 'herd'. But, in any event, it took me a week per chapter on that damned thing. If I could write HALF your speed, and only half as good, I'd probably be able to put every idea I've ever had into fanfic form, with time to spare. Keep up the good work!
Also, 'scritchy scritchy' for Twilight.
This really is getting quite good now. I'm enjoying following a story with daily updates for the first time And this one's getting darker and creepier, which is how I like'em.
Loving your distorted monster of an alicorn. I really want to see some fanart of that monster!
And:
"The only thing I really won't change is the fact that I know I end a lot of sentences with prepositions."
You just carry on right ahead and keep ending those sentences however you want. If people talk a certain way, and that way involves ending sentences with prepositions, then go right ahead. Even though I was taught to drop prepositions that are unnecessary, like "Where did you go to?" - you can get rid of the preposition, "to," and the sentence still makes sense - I feel that because people say "Where did you go to?" as well as "Where did you go?", then I should be able to have a character in a story I write say either of the options too, even the "incorrect" one.
Grammar Nazis telling you not to end sentences with prepositions is something up with which you should not put! :collectivegroanfromeverypony:
ok so celestia luna and pinkie pie were all killed in the same battle by something ( I love something, something is my favorite, oh wait, no, it killed me )... that's a little heavy handed in the hand waving department. I don't mean to criticize but some more flashbacks would be good, whats powerful enough to kill 2 goddesses and not destroy the world itself?
Woo. Quite good so far.
<spoilers ahead>
One problem I see, is the fairly clear railroad/foreshadowing. Twilight + amplification matrix + time travel + Equestria freezing if she does side projects instead of growing the sun = world freezes, everybody dies, centuries later a crazed Twilight finally gets the gig working and goes back to cause the disaster to happen in the first place.
Now, there's a ton of variations on how that can play out, but "Twilight kills Celestia because Twilight killed Celestia" would not be at all surprising or shocking by this point. And, needless to say, would be depressing as buck. So, here's hoping that 1. Twilight sees the risk and works to avoid it and 2. there's a whole lot more going on.
Looking forward to the updates, even if I'm worried about the ending being a predictable downer!
I just noticed something. In the first chapter, you call twilight the Princess of the Fading Sun. Wouldn't it be more correct if it would be, like, Growing Sun, or something? Cause Fading Sun implies that the sun is dieing, when in fact it is a recently born star, and is growing. Just my 2 cents. Almost irrelevant to the actual story. lol
>>129512>>130826>>129476>>129304
I might need to rework some of the 'battle' dialog in Chapter 4. That was ONE of the possible things I was expecting people to arrive at, but there was also another possible identity to the 'monster' I thought people were going to guess. So far no one has. I had written the dialog while reading an episode transcript, so perhaps I need to rewatch that episode because I lost something from it.
If trying to make predictions, I might direct people to the story summary / description. javascript:smilie('');
It crushed poor Pinkie as soon as it was finished talking. javascript:smilie(''); Luna and Celestia then engaged it in battle.
Hmm... Good point. Ultimately I thought it was just a cool title. Somewhat justified in that the growing brightness from day to day is too small for most ponies to recognize. What most of them would have noticed is that one day the sun was bright, and now that Celestia is gone, its much dimmer. Plus with the increasing impact on the ecosystem with each passing year of low light, psychologically the sun might seem to be getting dimmer even if its brightening. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I could, but there are like six other stories I would like to write, plus my own nonfanfiction stuff. Getting ideas out of my head need to take priority over retreading old ground unfortunately.
I should say 3 hours plus or minus one. The first chapter I blew through uber-fast, being struck by inspiration. Some of the harder to write chapters took me closer to four.
Fanart would indeed be awesome.
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thay need a nuclare fusion bomb to re start the sun and poor twi imortalitys a bitch
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