The royal hall stood empty of its usual hustle and bustle. Only an occasional guard change marked the passing of hours, or the change of "day" and "night".
At this time on a normal day, it would have been the walk-ins portion of the solar court petitioning schedule.
...on a normal day.
In the wake of Celestia's self-imposed isolation, Luna had tried her best to fill in, but everything had quickly fallen apart without the millennial ruler.
Luna heaved a sigh as she thought back a week.
After she had taken Twilight to the hospital, the only thing on her mind was Celestia. As soon as she knew Twilight was in good hooves, she returned from the hospital to find that her sister had locked herself away in her room, door warded with powerful solar magic.
Luna had begged and pleaded for her sister to release the wards and let her in, not even knowing if her sister could hear her, but no response was to be heard. After a few hours of pleading, she gave up in hopes her sister only needed time.
That is what she thought all throughout the night until she sank the moon...
...but the sun never came.
She begged and begged her sister, pleading that if not for her, then for the world at large, to come out and raise the sun.
No response could be heard from within.
Begging gave way to anger. She yelled, threatening the possibilities if she did not raise the sun.
No response.
Anger led to force. She tried to break down the door and dispel the magic that sealed the room. Her attempts were valiant but ultimately futile. Powered by the very magic of the sun, Luna couldn't even touch the wards let alone challenge their purpose. Exhaustion forced her to give up.
She sought to retreat back to her room, but before she could make good on that intent she was met by a very distraught group of guards, from them she learned that a crowd had built up to see Celestia, she had gone to calm them. It had been initially difficult to speak over top the shouts and accusations of Nightmare Moon's return, but she had won out eventually, calming the ponies into an uneasy, peace.
She came up with her contingency plan immediately after court. It was no sun, but her brightest full moon would have to suffice until Celestia saw reason.
She fulfilled her sister's other duties too, working through the backlog of work and hosting day court in her sister's stead.
The day guard had been concerned when Luna's first day hosting had ended with not even a single visitor. They had been afraid of her potential reaction, but at the conclusion of court, the princess only sighed and trotted back to her chambers. By the end of the fifth day of still no visitors she had exhausted the backlog of work and had taken to painting starscapes on canvas to pass the time.
She sighed as she finished yet another beautiful night sky she might implement to add a little variation to the everlasting darkness. She was actually building up a cue of them off to the side of the room.
The princess set up another canvas as she checked her blue, black, and white paints, this time bringing green out of the paint set as well.
The twisted irony was not lost on the guards who watched the Lunar princess. A thousand years ago this was all she wanted; an everlasting night and sole rule over the nation. Now those that saw her pitied the sighing and moping princess. She had all that Nightmare had ever wanted, but now all Luna wanted was to have things back to normal.
Luna continued to work in the still room, adding a green aurora to the newest canvas, bringing new color to the sleeping skyscape.
She turned to watch as the guard shift began its ceremonial changing from day to night units. The changing was the only way to tell which form of court was in session at any given time. Only by looking to the guards to see if their armor was the bright gold of the day guard or the blued steel of the night guard could one determine the current phase.
As her lunar troops relieved the day guard, another empty session of day court concluded.
She got up to retreat to her chambers when a shout drew her attention.
"Princess!" Luna saw the speaker was a young mare, severely out of breath and decked in the slightly disheveled uniform of a hospital nurse. Luna recognized garb from the hospital that she had left Twilight in the care of.
"Has Twilight awoken? Did my visit today-"
The mare's expression at the question filled her heart with dread.
"No, she... She's gone..." the mare drew back fearfully, looking everywhere but at the dark princess.
Luna's mind raced frantically about the implications of such news. Trying her best to not even think about her own personal attachments to the Element of magic; her first friend...
"She's gone your majesty..." the mare repeated fearfully.
"When?" The question was all Luna could muster.
The mare shied away further "...we don't know..."
"Dont know! DON'T KNOW! How could you not know! Are you not meant to watch the patients in your care? How could you not-"
Now the mare was crying, "We don't know! This evening when the shift changed, the guards were found unconscious and she was just gone."
"Why were the guards- You mean to say she has not passed from this life but rather disappeared from your care?"
The mare nodded.
"Then we must work with absolute haste to find her! Do you know the cause for her abduction? Do you know what fiends would undertake such a bold-?"
"We asked some other ponies in the same hall..."
"Yes? And! Speak with haste!"
"She walked out! I mean, they didn't see what happened inside her room, but they say they saw her just walk out."
Luna pondered the possible meanings of such an action.
None were good, especially if Luna's encounter in her dreams was any indication.
"Quickly, we must see to this immediately." she turned to the newly shifted-in guards, "Guards! Quickly inform the Captain that Twilight Sparkle is to be found and brought to the castle immediately, be sure to inform him to be delicate she has just awoken from a coma and may be- confused."
Two of the guards saluted and briskly trotted away.
Luna turned back to the nurse, "We will travel to the hospital. There are some ponies I need to speak to."
The nurse nodded and followed Luna as she left the hall.
HO HO HO!!! I have been proven wrong!!!
IT'S ALIVE!
Shit son. It lives.
So are you going to start posting chapters like you did before?
4548247
Hopefully I post more often than once a month
4548158 *sipping water* ... Huh, someone responded to a comment I made...
*reads this, spits water all over the place, breaks computer* ... I don't know how to feel about this, honestly.
On the one hand, moar of a good story.
...Buuut, on the other hand, I don't think I could handle the feels.
..First thing's first, Imma get this up on my Ipod. NOTHING STOPS ME FROM READING GOOD FANFICS!
EDIT: So I've actually read it now.
cdn2.crushable.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/right-in-the-feels.gif
Also, I keep thinking I know where this story is going to head next, and am constantly proved wrong.
Just... keep up the good work, and it looks like it's about to get hella interesting.
Just sat here and read all six Chapters. You have my interest. I'm excited to see where this is going.
Just got a new fave. Loving this.
I had to reread this, it's been so long... It's good to see you back!
It feels like I just got back a Pokemon from the fossil guy in the museum.
It's funny, I found this story for the first time today, and I found it through the accusation page, so I didn't realize it was freshly updated.
I guess saying update soon would be a little too presumptious...
This is a good story.
Well, that was... interesting. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be following. I can't buy into Celestia's actions. Notably, in chapter two with Celestia waiting for Twilight to apologize... Seriously, no... Just, no.
She really should have posted a reward.
"100,000 bits and the title of Prince to any pony who can convince my sister to grow a pair and come out of her bucking room."
It lives
4548777 You said it Davesprite.
4550247
Such a wonderful feeling.
Something tells me those guards are going to have a bad day.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
I don't know why I like these Dark Twi stories, but I do. I really do.
This story is great, keep it up!
I love this story, can't wait to read more
Thought i would point out that tragedy is misspelled in the story description.
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4820128
yay
AS intrigued by this as I am I'm not sure I can continue. Twilight has become more irrational, refusing even Luna's help and I can't see this going any way but Twilight going on a destructive rampage, or dissappearing never to be heard from again.
It's a general problemI find with "post canterlot wedding calling out" stories, both show Twilight's hurt and betrayal but none of them allow any believable scenario where Twilight can forgive or get over anything, and the problem, I admit, lies with that episode rather than writing itself, I jsut can't see a believable way for anyone to write a way for Twilight to forgive anyone (except her mind controlled brother or Cadance) without stretching anything
4841384 Have you ever read "Post Nuptials" or "Canterlot Consequences"? Those both involve Twilight forgiving everyone.
4920376
No I haven't and I've looked over the summaries but still my issue lies with the poor handling of the setup in "A Canterlot wedding" and after something like that I just can't see anything but an underlying feel of hurt plaguing Twilight the rest of her life.
On that topic it's one of the reasons I can't watch FiM the series anymore. I may not like the Twilicorn or Equestria Girls but those were just the catalysts to force me out of my revelry, step back, and examine the show and admit to myself, yes it's better than most shows that are on right now, but in all honesty it's not that good and there a re little problems like that in almsot every episode that undermine or infect the messages they're trying to give as compromised by hasbro (in most cases). I'll be honest and say that Friendship is Magic dosn't deserve the fan community it created but I still enjoy the fan works when they're well written.
Sorry about that scpheil but I just felt I had to say something.
4920590 I cannot properly convey at this point how much I agree with that center paragraph.
4921463
Thanks. I wasn't expecting such a digression to get a positive response, especially from the author. You agree with all of it?
Yeah, I agree.
I believe the show was great as a stand alone show at one point, when it had some oversight and building naritive (*Caugh* Lauren Faust *Cough*), and that's what built the fandom, but the more recent eppisodes have been, as you said, falling into the mindless pit of 'normal' 'childrens shows'. That is to say, they have been more and more boldly giving just plain bad stories, cute yes, but almost painfull to watch and just flawed. I could rant for hours about how the in-show logic often breaks down, and how people don't actually function as they're being portrayed, or how problems could have been solved much easier...
But isn't that what most of what we're doing here? I mean, while being a great show started the fandom, its "problems" have been one of the driving factors of it's unheeded expansion. Here's what I mean: if you take the show at face value, it is kind of stupid, but if you read into it what you see in it and build an headcannon around it, it suddenly becomes so much more complex, and so much more beautiful. Things like Trollestia-Tyrantlestia-Manipulestia, lingering NMM within Luna, starvation as the cause of the changeling invasion, and all of the emotional conditions that should be present in the characters rather than the happy facáde that we see as the eppisodes end are all what give rise to the complexity that sustains the fandom.
All that said, I thought that many of the recent eppisodes were, for various reasons, practically un-watchable. Every member of the mane six gets a bunch of repeat moral lessons,
all leading up to thethen suddenly out of bloody nowhere Tierek, but what of Twilight's alicornhood? I thougt that would be important to the structure of this season, but no, it's at best used as a vessel for a CMC 'popularity isn't all it's cracked up to be' eppisode, and at worst absoltely ignored, for most of the season the presence of wings on her back seem like an animation afterthought...and I am verry much not ok with that.They built a whole world and in some respects populated it with fascinating possibilities and absolutely astoundingly in-depth universal mechanisms, but then they throw random wrenches into everything just as often. It's infuriating, and at the same time wonderful, becase those issues cause the fandom to react with offentimes great solutions.
TL:DR: I agree
P.S. I am verry tired, so it will be up to future me to decide if this made any sense. (Sorry if it didn't)
P.P.S. Wouldn't it be great if i could put the motivation I put into this comment into finishing this story? That'd be nice...
4921519
I know what you mean, I wish I could put the motivation into writing this comment into working on my own stories of my DnD campaign.
Despite my issues with the show (which you already listed) I do genuinely love some of the fanworks produced that, in my mind, surpass the show such as: The Twixie Answers Tumblr (especially the jokes it pokes at the show while keeping with some continuity), The Pun Pony Project, Motherly Scootaloo, and fanficiton like this one.
I will be honest, the reason I love what you've written but can't get up the desire to read more is that I don't like reading dark and sad stuff these days because I have some depression issues, in my mind going "the world is sad enough, why am I reading stuff to make me more sad?"
4921519
Oh and I've read a lot of responses from so called "mature fans" saying "Stop complaining about the Equestria Girls (or twilicorn or anythign after season 3), it's not for you it's for little girls so that's what it markets to"
my response is to paraphrase a quote from Yatzhee Crosshaw
"Even by those standards, completely fucked up standards that they are, Equestria girls isn't very good."
I can't really like this story. I mean, I'll be the first to concede that the show had problems, since the very beginning its had plots with logical/ethical issues built into their premise (which has made Celestia seem irresponsible and manipulative) and every season has episodes which are either just bad or undermine their own message or have characters suddenly becoming jerks (even the "its a little girls show put together by a toy company to sell stuff" defense only goes so far), plus lots of long running gags or contrivances that have deeply disturbing implications if you think about them. It's fairly apparent that even from the start the fandom put more thought into Equestria than Hasbro, and in many cases the writers. And I've enjoyed several fanfics based off of exploring the implications of this or that episode/trope.
But frankly I can't enjoy this story. For one thing it seems determined to nitpick everything and give the worst possible interpretation of absolutely everything in the show. For another it just feels dark and mean-spirited. It's not really an intelligent examination of the shows flaws so much as angry one-sided rant about them. Moreover I found Twilight to be very OOC (on several levels), most of the actual plot is just her throwing a giant temper tantrum and frankly given how its developed so far I don't see the story going anywhere but strait to hell.
Frankly, this seems more like a disillusioned brony's venting of all their issues with the show than a story. I'm not really interested in that, I want to see the shows inconsistencies and troubles turned into interesting stories, not watch them used as a hammer to smash everything tjavascript:void(0);o pieces and leave behind only a wreck.
5024590 Well it's meant to take everything the worst way posssible, if there was justification presented for any of the actions, either Twilight would become more ooc for disregarding it, or it wouldn't allow for the dark that I wanted this to have at this point. I would ask though that if you liked this story at all though, to check back in and read the ending once it's posted to see if it wraps up the story as well as iI think it will. I admit that alot of things are taken in the worst possible way, but, again, I think that the end will be worth it.
5024590 honestly can kinda see that. ther have been odd moments but not many taking into consideration how little regard msot shows of this format take continuity and character development.
i just saw this story today. i really like it. keep up the good work!
*prods story with stick* I think it's dead
5087715 If it was dead he could have just put the canceled label so I think he is just busy with IRL stuff or just is in a writers block
At first glance this looks like one of those "hate-on-Celestia fics".
But Celestia never actually defended her actions, or really had the chance to. Of course, there was that long period of not approaching Twilight--which was a terrible idea, but giving her time to calm down is a reasonable response and has apparently worked in the past. Waiting for Twilight to come and apologize both sounds incredibly arrogant and demeaning--but from her reaction during Twilight's accusation, she certainly gave a great deal of what to what Twilight accused her of. Twilight apologizes--not as much as Fluttershy, but coming to apologize is entirely withing reason for her character; the important part here being, we didn't get anything about what Celestia would do in response to Twilight apologizing. She could have been waiting to make her own apologies, to acknowledge some of Twilight's points, and make some defenses against some of her accusations (most notably, the part about letting her stay in Ponyville to live in a library with her first friends who she bonded to strongly enough to work the Elements of Harmony with). But she seriously underestimated just how badly Twilight is taking her parent's death.
I would dearly love to see a confrontation between her and Twilight Velvet. I worry about Twilight's mental state and what she would actually do to her mother, but I very much want to know what possible reason she might have had for abandoning her daughter like that (and while she might deserve to be punished for her actions, Twilight doing so would not be good for Twilight's mind at all). (Also, I thought Twilight's speech at the funeral was too dry and stereotypical, but the reveal right after about her familial abandonment made that actually seem a bit brilliant. Of course she couldn't give any truly emotional remembrance to somepony she didn't know.)
And what has caused the situation to escalate past Chapter 1 is borne almost entirely out of misunderstandings and lack of communication. Twilight is focusing on the negative and interpreting all her history with Celestia in a negative light. And what she heard was Celestia's BS answer to shake the nobles off of her and an acknowledgement of Twilight's success that could only be understood as such from Celestia's POV. Then Luna appears and perhaps over-identifies her own feelings with Twilight's (which have in large part at least been born from misunderstandings, and her earlier feelings in her dreams are in large part based on a feeling of abandonment where Celestia may have just been trying to give her the space to spread her wings and leave the nest).
And now Celestia... well, there's certainly no misunderstandings about what anypony else feels about her from her part. Not after that. And now, realizing what has happened as a result of her actions (even the misunderstandings, to at last a small extent, can be blamed on her), she has completely broken down. Has Luna tried visiting her dreams, or has Celestia avoided sleeping to keep her out? I'm a bit worried that she may have committed suicide, and her spell just hasn't faded yet. I hope she at least left a couple notes, to Luna and especially Twilight. Hell, if Twilight finds out about it I hope she gives the letter the time of day. She isn't too stable right now.
Speaking of which, will you be addressing what was in the scroll Twilight summoned when confronting Celestia anytime soon? It looks... significant.
There's more depth here than just a blame- or hate-fic, enough room for the worst of the accusations to be addressed or answered in a positive way, and with misunderstandings forming the largest part of this there is a chance for things to eventually heal. Or even if this results in one of their deaths, for one reason or another, forgiveness, even if only posthumous.
Pretty sure it's dead.
I think Celestia is really broken.
Underlined section makes no sense. It needs to be re-writen.
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very
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Capitalize
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needs end " marks.
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So far the only problem in this fic is uncapitalized words and misuse/placement of " marks. But the story itself is superb.
Delicate? Yeah, that’ll work.