A Shining Light
Celestia's sun fell below the horizon, it's glow fading into twilight.
Twilight
Shining Armor's heart ached. His chest filled with burning pain at the thought. He poured himself another glass to put out the flames. Every night it got a little harder. Every time it took just a little more to kill the pain, the memories. Soon it would reach the threshold where the amount to kill the memories would take his life with it. He welcomed death's warm embrace. He picked up his book of poetry and opened to a ragged dogeared page, Thanatopsis. He read it aloud to himself.
So live, that when thy summons comes
to join the innumerable caravan
which moves to that mysterious realm,
where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death,
thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, scourged to his dungeon,
but, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust,
approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him,
and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Shining spun the cylinder.
WHIZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz *click*
He lifted the pistol to his temple.
*CLICK*
He sighed, disappointed.
"Not today?" He heard a voice behind him. His fiance, Cadence, was standing there in the shadows of the living room. She moved into the light. "We're getting married in two days."
Shining emptied the revolver and placed it back in the drawer, locking it. "This isn't about the wedding."
"I know." she answered, "You've been doing this every night for as long as I can tell. Is it really that bad? Your life?"
"I am meant to suffer." He answered solemnly. "I have long feared that the sins of my past would come back to haunt me... and that the cost would be more than I could bear."
"So that's it then? A five in six chance at another day?" She scoffed, "You should know that if you gamble long enough the house wins." She pleaded.
"Yeah... that's kinda the plan." He looked down at the desk, taking another swig of cider, "But fate it seems is not ready for me to be at peace. I keep coming up click. Another day to suffer."
"No!" She cried, "No, it's another chance to redeem yourself! Another chance to be the pony you were meant to be! Oh, Shining, I love you so much! You mean everything to me! I want to marry you in two days, not bury you! But I don't want to marry a stranger! Please, PLEASE just tell me what it is about yourself that you hate so much! What could you have done that was so bad that you have to suffer so?"
Shinning hadn't the fight in him any longer to resist. Outside the skies had gone dark, the stars twinkling in the heavens. He motioned to the seat beside him. "You better have a seat. It's kind of a long story and not one that's easy to tell, so bear with me." Cadence sat beside her future husband, listening intently. "You see, it was several years ago, while I was still living at home with my parents and... her. With, Twilight..."
__________________________________________________
Twilight laid herself to sleep in her library home. The stars and crescent moons of her blankets wrapped about her in warm embrace. The wedding was in two days. She would be leaving for Canterlot tomorrow afternoon aboard the Friendship Express. She was so worried about the preparations to come, she feared she wouldn't get any sleep that night. To her pleasant surprise, sleep took her quite easily, guided by Luna's unseen hoof.
Twilight found herself in a field of tall grass, flying a kite in the gentle breeze of a warm summer's day. She was alone, enjoying the tranquility of the solitude, the sound of the wind on the grass.
"Miss Sparkle, pardon my intrusion." Luna begged as she lofted down into Twilight's Dreamscape. Twilight released the kite and it vanished into the ethereal sky.
"Princess, I didn't expect to see you out here in a field this time of day." Twilight said as she curtsied.
"It is urgent, regarding your brother. You must come with me." Luna commanded. Twilight took Luna's hoof, and in an instant they rocketed away into the sky of the Dreamscape. The ground below Twilight faded away into a tiny pinpoint of light. A tiny star on the sky below her. Or was it above her? It was suddenly hard to tell. But as she widened her view, she saw other stars. Hundreds, no, thousands!
"Where are we?" Twilight asked, in a daze.
"Twilight Sparkle, welcome to my realm, the realm of the Dreamscape. Scant few ponies have ever bore witness to it and kept their sanity. It is well that I am here to protect you from it." Luna answered.
"Each light is... a dream? A dreamer?" Twilight asked as they moved over the landscape of the Dream.
"Correct. Each light is a sovereign pocket of the Dreamscape that each pony dreamer sculpts by their thoughts." Luna answered in the tone of a bored tour guide.
A Shining Light in the dark Twilight thought to herself.
"Here!" Luna cried, as they plummeted into one of the small dots of light. It was a strange sensation for Twilight, to move at such speeds and feel no wind in her mane. In an instant, the point of light expanded to fill the whole of their field of vision. The ground rushed up to meet their hooves.
"Twilight!"
Twilight turned and looked to the source she was being called from. She saw her brother, frantically searching the streets of Canterlot around them. He looked at her. Right at her. He ran to her, and then ran through her as if she weren't even there.
"Twilight!" He shouted out, past her, before he collapsed onto the sidewalk, sobbing. "Where are you?"
Twilight ran to his side, calling to him, and put her hoof on his shoulder, only to find it pass into him, and was, same as her call for comfort, without effect.
The Captain of the Royal Guard remained in a heap on the Canterlot sidewalk, a broken stallion, crying unto himself.
"He can neither see nor hear you." Luna spoke, moving to Twilight's side. "We are only observers here."
Twilight looked down to him, "This is his dream?"
Luna nodded, "Yes. As his dreams have been every night since he left his parents home. Some times he finds you, sometimes he apologizes. But most nights he is here, alone, searching for you. Wishing only to see your face, or hear your voice."
Twilight began to cry, she could feel his pain, his utter despair, "Princess, isn't there anything you can do?"
Luna looked away, "I would Twilight. I would end such suffering if it were within my power. But Shining Armor will not allow me to save him. He will not allow himself to be saved from this torture of his soul each night."
Twilight was a mix of shocked and angry, "But, but WHY? Why would he wish this pain on himself? For all these years? Nopony deserves this!"
Luna regained her poise, "Twilight, Shining wishes this pain unto himself each day and night because he honestly believes he deserves it, in spite of what his fiance or I have tried to council him otherwise."
"There must be some way..." Twilight pleaded.
"My dear Twilight," Luna said, "I'm afraid the only pony who can free Shining from his prison of guilt an despair... is himself."
Twilight looked down at the crippled stallion before her.
"But you Twilight, you are the key. The key to Shining Armor's salvation. You must convince him to forgive himself." Luna paused, joining Twilight in her gaze upon the broken pony, "Or else he will remain in this emotional prison until it kills him."
Twilight steadied herself. She knew what she had to do now. "Princess Luna, please, take me away. I can bear this sight no longer."
Luna took her hoof in hers. "Nor I." as they vanished into the sky of the Dreamscape.
________________________________________________________________
In the morning, Twilight took the early train into Canterlot. She arrived in the city with the dawn. She looked to the east and took a deep breath. She would need the strength. She strode the familiar path through the city. She headed to a location she knew well. The quarters of the Captain of the Royal Guard.
All around her the city began to awaken. Ponies were out on the sidewalk on their way to work... or jogging. She felt like she was walking to death row, it was sublime to have such diverse... company. She neared the building she sought. She could see the balcony facing cliff-wards, toward her town. She thought she saw movement, but perhaps it was just the drapes left open.
She stood at the door. She stood there for endless minutes, her hoof frozen in mid knock. She looked at her hoof, and then the door, and back and forth, willing it to knock. finally she took a step back, placing all four hooves on the ground. In a flash she lunged forward and knocked, as though jumping into a water pool, do it quickly, now it's too late.
Twilight waited for the shock of the cold water impact...
The door opened slowly, a pony who was not her brother poked her head out.
"Twilight?" Cadence whispered, "Is that really you? My you've grown since I last saw you." She scurried outside and closed the door behind her. "I'm glad your here, I have no idea what to do anymore, and I'm so scared. I'm afraid I'm going to lose him!" Cadence hugged her tightly. "He... he told me about what happened... when he left home." She looked down at Twilight. She returned a sympathetic look, each knowing what the other did now. "Twilight, please, you need to talk to him. I know what he did was wrong, but you need to help him. I filed down the hammer to his revolver years ago, so it won't fire, but he won't need it now. When he woke from his nightmares this morning he was worse than I've ever seen him! This depression is going to kill him!" She was so scared.
Twilight's world was spinning. Everything around her was falling apart. Her brother was killing himself, her foal sitter and friend could only watch as he wasted away. The Princesses, whom she always relied on to be there for her were powerless to help her. She was at the edge of a cliff, dreading the nudge to push her over. So she put a hoof out and stepped forward. Twilight stepped past Cadence, inside the house. Furniture was overturned. There was broken glass everywhere. She crept toward the sound of whimpering. She stepped past empty bottles of cider as she neared the balcony. For the first time in years, she saw him, her brother, Shining Armor.
Oh, Shining, what harm has come to you?
He lay in a heap on the balcony. The curtains, torn from the rod above the doorway, draped about him as a disheveled blanket, stained in blood from his many cuts from the broken glass. His breath was shallow, but Twilight could just barely make out his speech, repeating over and over, his lips smeared with blood.
approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams
and lies down to pleasant dreams
and lies down to pleasant dreams
"Shiny."
His body went rigid. His breath held. His torn ear strained at it's scabs to turn to the sound of the voice. That voice.
"Oh, no, no, Shiny."
"Twilie?" His voice was ragged, he coughed, and opened one of his eyes just a sliver, to peek at this impossibility.
"It's me." She answered.
"Twi-? no. NO! NOOO! DON'T LOOK AT ME!" He screamed from beneath the mess. "DON'T LOOK AT ME!" He cried out as he scurried himself away from her, bawling openly now, pressing against the banister of the patio, making himself as small as possible. She tried to move closer. He sobbed into the floor as he shielded his face from her, as though expecting to be beaten to death. It broke her heart to see him like this. "AHHhhHH." He cried out, bawling completely. Real crying. Real crying is ugly. Full on snot bubbles, drooling all over himself, tear stained bloody mess. "DON'T! Don't you look at me! I'm horrible!"
Cadence could only look on helplessly from the shadows. She was past her breaking point. She was watching her fiance dying in front of her. Twilight extended her soft hoof to his cheek. He recoiled away in terror before she could touch him. She moved closer. His eyes were clenched shut, as though expecting her touch to painfully burn him.
"It's okay." She said. Her first contact was so slight, it barely registered to her. But his reaction was immediate.
It was as though he were struck by lightning, like his heart started again. He gasped and took the largest inhale of his life, his bloodshot eyes shot open, looking directly at her. No, this was not a dream. This was very real. There she was. It was her. Twilight.
Twilight
The word brought with it instant sobriety.
"Oh, Shining, what have you done?" She cooed, running her hoof through his matted mane.
"I deserve this-" He manged.
"Why?" Twilight asked. So simple. So potent a question.
"Because- because I'm a bad pony." He cried out, condemning himself.
"Shhh. No more of that. You're not a bad pony. You're a good pony. You're a terrific pony. You're my favorite pony." She told him, cradling his sobbing head in her forelegs.
"GHAHH I'M SO SORRY TWILIE!" He bellowed out between heaves of sobs, tears long since run dry.
"Shhh, I know. I know how sorry you are. You are the most sorry pony I've ever seen." Twilight tried to comfort. "Hey- Hey! Look at me." Shining Armor looked up at his little sister, cradling him. "I know you're sorry. I forgive you!"
"Shining Armor," She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
"I love you."
In magic, there are certain words of Power for incantation, evocation, and such.
It's that way to can hear your name over the din of a crowd. There is power in names.
And some words have innate magic power.
'I Love You' is three of them.
Suddenly, Shining Armor was brought to his hooves by an unseen force and lifted into the air. His cuts began to close, his breathing renewed and invigorated. His impoverished body filled back out. He gasped at new life. It was like someone let the air back into the room.
Twilight forgave her brother.
Shining finally forgave himself.
He was slowly lowered back to the floor. His eyes were clear and alert. "Twilie!" She wrapped her hooves around him. "I've missed you so much." He squeezed her. She just squeezed him tighter. It was heaven. A sudden fear gripped him. "Am I dead?"
"No silly. You're still alive. And you have the rest of you life to be happy if you let yourself." Cadence said, joining the hug.
Shining let go of his sister and looked around the room. The place was still a mess and so was he. "I- I think I need a shower."
"Okay, you do that and then we'll celebrate after." She said. He looked at her funny. "Duh! You're getting married!"
Shining smiled. It was the first real smile he'd worn in years. It looked good on him. It felt good. He stepped into the washroom. Luna lofted in through the open window joining the others. Shining let himself be healed by her magic once he had forgiven himself.
"All this time I thought he was mad at me because he was kicked out of the house." Twilight said. "I never realized it was because he felt so ashamed."
"Now we can make up for lost time." Cadence said, turning to Luna as well. "All of us."
____________________________________________________________
That night as Luna stood watch over Equestria, she bid her elder sister's sleeping chamber a visit. She was frowning in her sleep as she always had. The corners of her closed eyed glistened with tears. With her magic she looked into her sisters dreams.
Her sister Celestia dreamed of a millennium ago. She dreamed of a younger Luna visiting her day court.
"Please!" Young Luna begged. "Can't we make the night last just a bit longer? I ask for nothing much, just an hour or two more!
"This has already been explained sister. If we allow the moon too much time then our subjects will not be able to harvest their food properly. How many times must I tell you Luna?" Celestia scolded. "Now... my adviser has just arrived. He and I must discuss actual matters of importance. So if you don't mind dear..."
Celestia dreamed of Luna's dark decent as Nightmare Moon. Not once but repeatedly. She dreamed Luna's faults as her failings as a sister.
Luna broke the spell when she could bear it no more. She dried her sleeping sister's eyes.
"Oh, Celestia, it has been so long since that time. I have already forgiven you." Luna whispered in her ear as she knelt down beside her. "So please, forgive yourself..."
The End
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I'd actually wondered if this was inspired by a certain recent fic on this pairing.
Well done; I can't help but feel that maybe Twi forgave him a bit too quickly, but then, she got to see his suffering pretty clearly. I just wonder about whether or not hers is really done.
1842314 Not to get too META, but the fic intentionally never overtly says what happened what happened that fated night.
That is for the reader to decide. Why what do you think he did?
BTW that's rhetorical, don't actually answer it here please. You can PM me if you feel rocked by the urge.
As far as forgiving him too quickly, you must realize, this is YEARS after that night.
It could be that Shining was blowing it way out of proportion in his head all those years.
Maybe what Applejack told Twilight changed her point of view on the matter.
1842333
I won't go and answer in much detail, but here is the story that I'd thought you were inspired by. With that tone in my head... is it a surprise?
1842467 I had already written the first couple of chapters (But hadn't published yet) before that fic came out. I definitely drew from it for Shining's source of his remorse and self loathing as I wrote (and rewrote) from then on. But like a good horror film, you never actually *see* what happens in both that, and my own. I intentionally wrote it so that the reader could fill in the blanks with their imagination (which could be much worse than anything I could write). I can't say that I liked that fic (I wouldn't want to read it again). But I respect it tremendously for its writing style and atmosphere (even without the music). It turned my stomach reading it, it made me FEEL, and it takes a lot for that to happen, that's why I upvoted it.
TL;DR Yes I read it, but it is not canonical for my fic.
Oh, I can definitely see that with both. Of course, as a dark-ficcer myself, I'm inclined to make them worse than what most people would come up with.
Me, I just kinda see the possibility for that story ending with another unwanted attempt to "express himself" towards Twi, and this one being a follow-up. May end up writing my own general take on the subject eventually, but I've got enough other stuff before that!
Were you putting movie quotes into the narrative on purpose? I caught several, but my favorite was Kill Bill.
"You're not a bad pony. You're a good pony. You're a terrific pony. You're my favorite pony."
The Patriot reference a chapter or so before wasn't bad either...
2087824 Yes. That's kinda my thing. And good job on finding them!
2089826
Yeah, they are cool... The only problem was suddenly picturing Twilight speaking in David Carradine's voice.
2089836 Wait, I don't remember a patriot reference. what was the quote?
2089841
"I have long feared that the sins of my past would come back to haunt me... and that the cost would be more than I could bear."
Replace "haunt" with "visit" and you have the Patriot. Somehow I am ok with Shining channeling Mel Gibson...
2089941 Ah yes, that's the one. I had always felt that 'haunt' fit better.
Thanks for this, Shakespearicles. This was just what I needed after reading Not Now Big Brother. I mean, the concepts presented in that fic and this one is still barred from my personal canon, but connecting the two makes its own sort of sense, at least to me.
I knew I'd seen that last scene before.
While I think the ending/AJ thing is a bit strange I can say that I truly enjoy the way you spend the story painting Shining. That being said I think the daily suicide attempt as shown was a bit lop sided.
As presented Shining is a very driven character and he will do anything he sets is mind to, So why would he leave life to random chance? I think more of a "I could but I won't, because I deserve this." would have fit a bit better.
All in all a great character presentation and I would love to see similar takes on others, 'cause not enough folks write sad helpless pony well.
(Also, sorry if this is kind of a nerco. But I started looking at your other stories today and this seemed interesting.)
2513819
I like it! I'll go back an edit it after I finish my current project.
I'm confused. Why would Twilight need to forgive Shining Armor? I feel like she was raped or something by him, but that doesn't really fit in with the end of the story. I'm so very confused.
1842333
Ok, as a horror writer myself I understand getting the reader to fill in the blanks, but the blanks you left here are... they don't cut any specific outlines well enough to actually come to a conclusion.
It needs more hints. I see what you were trying to do, but it quite frankly misses the mark. A near miss, but a miss nonetheless. With too much ambiguity, readers generate multiple possible answers, but without something to tip it towards one the trend is towards simply not picking.
That isn't what you want. Thing is, you're so close to handling that mechanic right. To be blunt, this is writing hard mode. The piece is excellent. The composition is well sewn together and the pacing works. I think it's within a hundred words of perfect.
What just happened?
I cannot even.
Wha?
Wow powerful. Good thing cadence filed the hammer.
Wait? Is it over already?
But you didn't even explain what happened. Okay, it is suggested that Shining raped Twilight, but even that doesn't make much sense. If that was the case, then Twilight wouldn't think of their relationship as "close", as she describbed to AJ, since rape doesn't unify people. On the other hand, if it was consensual, then Shining souldn't feel guilty about it. I'm sorry, but I just didn't get it, and it seems a lot of people haven't either. I was honestly expecting for more.
6705344 I agree that I left a lot of things needlessly vague. I'll go back (someday) and make things more clear. Suffice to say that it was statutory rape. (Like Two Peas in a Pod but without the happy ending) He felt really guilty about it after, hoping she would forget about the whole thing. She didn't and when she got older, she realized the wrongness what it was that they did and distanced herself from him, thinking that he was still a perv who took advantage of her, but part of her still loved him.
Damn, now I actually do want to go back and give this story some proper polish.
6706122
Thank you for taking your time to clarify the situation. I think I understand it better now.
Eh?
6706122 i thought that Twi and Shining had sex by some sort of messed up accident and that Shining felt guilty cause siblings cant be with each other
6774051 Like I said, I intentionally left it open to interpretation.
6774672 you sneaky genius
6775583 I was trying to find a picture to encapsulate "sneaky genius".
I Googled 'ninja einsein'.
I was not disappointed.
funny-pictures-quotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/nose1.jpg
6776080 ... No words
it is so hard to believe this is your first story here.
the wording the feelings are just so real. a true work of art.
7094077 Thank you. I've always been proud of this.
7095649 as you should be sir as you should be.
Why the sex tag?
8614932 Sex is implied. And the mods said that with a teen rating, it needs the tag.
8615421
Oh, OK! I understood that I was just wondering if there was any actual sex in it, LOL.