A young Luna and Celestia build a snowpony.
A bittersweet tale of the younger, pre-Equestria princesses. More convoluted than it appears. Story inspired by Egophilliac's drawing.
Part of the SALT monthly contest, December round. Thanks go to Firebirdbtops for the pre-read on this.
A Note On Sequels: None of them take place in the same location or carrying the same themes. They're more a sort of loosely connected character arc for Princess Luna that can be thought of as 'canonical' to one another.
Chapters (1)
Snow, I hate snow.
But this was okay.
This. This is why I follow you, Aquillo! Beautiful, poignant, breathlessly descriptive, dripping and overflowing with symbolism, rotten with the ghost of history, bright, but burning with the hint of the future, emotionally complex, happy, but only in the way of those who simply don't acknowledge the pain... I just... I...
Genius.
Freaking genius. Your never-ending ingenuity at finding fresh, evocative ways to describe everything humbles me.
I know it's supposed to remind Celestia of somepony, presumably one of her parents, but what with trying to figure out what the green means, who the snowpony resembles, how much of that is in Celestia's head, what happened to everypony else, and how the Windigo figure into it, I'm not entirely certain that I got everything I was supposed to get.
Here's hoping this gets featured.
Oh I loved the descriptions in this story. I can't figure out what you're trying to hint at the end though. Something about their parents, I guess.
Oh. Oh!
The part about the ice statues suddenly makes so much more sense. So heartbreakingly much more...
Finally responding to the comments here. 'Cause I'm a terrible procrastinator.
1869302
I don't understand how you can hate snow. Snow's glorious, both to muck about in and describe. Then again, I suppose Canada's overkill...
1869381
Daww. Thanks for the nice words. I think I'm started to gain a reputation for writing 'descriptions porn'. It's a fair reputation, seeing as it's the aspect I lavish the most attention on.
1869443>>1870694
In all honesty, no-one was meant to get any of this. I wrote it with "Be subtle" as my starting point; I failed at that and ended up being vague instead. Bah.
The green isn't just in there because I'm incapable of telling a story that isn't about green. Green ties back in to Luna's bit about scarves being the same colour as the pony's magic and Celestia's flash memory. The Windigoes tie in to the bit with the "Ice statues" *cough* as well as the part about Celestia wanting to chase after the "shooting stars", which is what I'd figure a Windigo'd look like from a distance.
The bit about everypony else: I wanted to create a pony version of Pompeii/Chernobyl, in essence, and I still hold that Windigoes have been massively underplayed by this fandom. As for the alicorns, I wrote two explanations into it: One is that they were moved on by the Windigoes and left Luna and Celestia behind because they can't fly/do magic, and the other is that their parents were frozen (and the existence of other Alicorns is a *shrug, dunno* type thing). Take either explanation as you want (I prefer the former, but then again the story's out and I am dead.)
1893237
Heh, yeah. I'm glad to see someone saw through the stupidly vague layers I weave round my work.
1965097 I didn't think the ice statues were too subtle. They were just the right amount of subtle.
Man, that bit with the ice statues.... *shiver* Poor Celestia.