This story is a sequel to The Snowpony
The Crystal Empire is old and strong and arrogant. It is the sole domain of ponydom outside the Sisters' rule, a preserved reminder of the days that passed long before the foundation of Equestria.
And it teaches its lessons well.
A story about the rise of King Sombra. Updates on a "I have no idea when" type basis. Dark and stupidly avoidant of proper nouns.
A Note On Sequels: None of them take place in the same location or carry the same themes. They're more a sort of loosely connected character arc for Princess Luna, starting with The Snowpony, that can be thought of as 'canonical' to one another.
Chapters (3)
Interesting. Needs more views.
He licks his lips, and walks forwards.
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Faved before I finished the first chapter.
Absolutely beautiful, though I managed to spot a typo in chapter two: "He gaze turns round to the edge."
Good call on "you" and "thou": it's a good signaling mechanism, and, at least on this side of the divide that separates us from Equestria, it's linguistically sound.
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Cheers. I put in a bit of time into making sure I wasn't going to be entirely inaccurate with my messings over the old grammars. The hardest part was adapting to the differing verb endings, though being able to choose between a stressed -est and an unstressed -'st is something I sorta miss from ordinary language.
I also notice that I've completely forgotten to respond to the other comments on this story.
"We are not free to act freely here"
Um.
I'd always heard that the difference between thou and you was the same as the difference between you and ya'll: plurality. It would make sense, then, that you was used to address royality, what with majestic plural being a thing.
Also, I really like your use of present-tense. Because when you use present-tense, you don't abuse perfect past-tense like you do in Equestria's End, and that makes me happy.
The plot is definitely picking up here. I can finally make a prediction as to how this story will go, and I must say, I'm not looking forward to the ending.
But still, I will persevere!
This is an interesting take on Luna's character: a little rebellious, a little irresponsible, and a little bit hard to control. It makes me wonder how you're going to turn this rambunctious filly into a dutiful, self-doubting princess of the night. It also makes me wonder how old she is. And how powerful she is.
I'm a little disappointed in this chapter, though. Maybe it's because it was written with the perspective of childish royalty, but it doesn't feel as meaningful as the previous two chapters. It has less emotional drive, and the political intrigue isn't explicit enough to supplement the lack of weight or tangibility; it's not generic, but it's not mature either. Not like chapters one and two.
I think you could have solved this problem by making the chapter longer. Describe the theatre-house in greater depth, tell us more about the Equestria-Crystal conflict, show us Luna's fight with the orphans! Give us some detail, for God's sake! Some action! There are so many missed opportunities here!
Still, you wrote this chapter to establish character and conflict, and you did a fine job of that. I'm excited to learn more about the state of Equestria and the Crystal Empire. I only wish I could have learned about them in this chapter.
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Oh, wow. Lovely long comment
I think you're thinking of the difference between you and ye: ye is the antiquated plural that was lost from the English language (not to be confused with the ye in "Ye olde X" which is just a misspelling of the). We gradually lost both thou and ye from the language in favour of a multi-use you.
And ha! I do so not abuse the past perfect Okay, maybe a little... But I swear you're meant to have a had by every verb in past perfect. Scout's honour.
I think this is the first chapter I wrote knowing where I wanted the story to go, which is essentially why so much gets set up. You're right in that I essentially chickened out of writing a lot of the actual conflict for this chapter: I wrote most of this chapter with an eye on the word count as you could tell from reading the number of times I attempted to write it.
I'll probably take your advice, write more into this chapter and then split it in two. I've no idea when because I'm a hopeless procrastinator, but I'm penciling it in. Thanks for that.
As for how Luna's going to change, well, that's pretty much half of this story. The main theme behind Sombra is always going to be power, and Luna's character arc is planned to be a discovery in how little real power she has.