Eventide Falls

by errant

Epilogue

Ponyville Library
6 Months after Twilight's rescue

The bright sunlight of a clear summer day poured through the windows of Twilight's library, illuminating piles of scrolls and opened texts. The lavender mare herself sat in one of the numerous chairs pulled up to the table, her eyes transfixed on the reports in front of her. To a less-educated pony they would be gibberish; to her they told a comprehensive accounting of Equestria's status as a nation. She absent-mindedly pulled a hoof through her rose-streaked mane, disturbing a single blue feather unobtrusively braided amongst the strands, causing it to graze the side of her face. Feeling its presence, she sat back from her work to gaze into the cerulean expanse of the cloudless atmosphere. A smile slowly spread across her face as her thoughts turned to a certain weather pony.
She craned her neck behind her to call to her dragon assistant. “Spike! I need you to take a a letter for me.” The young dragon hurried to her side, quill poised above parchment.

Dear Princess Celestia,

I don't think I need to tell you that this has been the most difficult time of my life. After I lost my ability to use magic, I thought I had lost my reason to live. My wonderful friends did their best to make me feel useful, but it never really worked. I thought I had lost everything; I was certain that without my magic my friends and even you, Princess, would abandon me. I was convinced that without magic I had no purpose.

Fortunately, I no longer feel this way. Time has its own power to heal, and there has been time for me to come to understand that the magic of friendship is more powerful than that which I lost. My friends were never in danger of leaving me, no matter what I thought in the midst of my confusion. I lost my magic, but I still have everything else.

Since you named me your personal advisor and placed me in charge of Canterlot's libraries and archives, I've found my purpose again. I feel like I belong, like I contribute. With that in place, and my friends and my special somepony at my side, I don't truly feel like I lost anything. I have everything that's important to me right here.
Thank you, Princess, for giving me this second chance.

Your Faithful Student,

Twilight Sparkle.

P.S. - Rainbow says 'thank you' for the anniversary cupcakes.

Comments

[Obsidian]

good, but still tragic!

[DreZoma]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[errant]

638594

Thank you! I was hoping to maintain the tragedy of the whole situation while giving everypony a decently happy ending.

[Pleaseworkforonce]

my favorite plot line dark at first happyish at the end

sucks that twilight lost her magic though that quick death was to good for the rebels they better be glad i didn't get to choose the punishment especially if i suddenly shifted sexs and became Celestia then they would be in for it (wait wouldn't i shift sexs anyways dammit now i'm confused)

I'M LEAVING BEFORE I MAKE MYSELF LOOK LIKE A BIGGER IDIOT

[ArguingPizza]

[jasoncookies]

That was a great story! I hate it when tragedys are only sad halfway through. You did a nice job of making it an emotional story.

[NeonEclipse]

media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lww5rrKKvV1qel7a2.gif

[Larsen]

[Shielded Myth]

741856
i agree in every regard, i was half expecting twi to get her horn back some way but this works out just as well, man you write such a good story here it made my feels twice implode
keep it up man, i look forward to reading more of your stories

[Ambrosia_Firehoof13]

So, I spent the last say 6 hours reading your other story. I started that just after midnight and I hate to say it, but I can't read this right now. I shall read it when I get the chance however and it will be going into my read later list. Great work on the other story and I'm very excited to see the next installment!

[Treilacl]

Uhhh... This story kinda makes me cry. And not for the reasons you wanted. Not the "omg the feels!" kinda way. It made me cry because to me it rose like a phenix early on and seemed like it was going to be one of the better stories that I'd read in a long time. However, in the end I feel like it crashed. That's the short version of it, below I'll go into more depth if you care to read it.

It felt like we had two stories here. The 1st (which was the majority of what you've written down) is a tragedy that explores a bit between Twilight and Celestia's relationship and how an anti-Celestia group targeted Twilight, Celestia's reaction and then the struggle and heartbreak in dealing with losing the very thing that for so long had been a major factor in Twilight's life (her magic). And then the second story (which was like the last 2 chapters or so) was a Twi-Dash shipping story.

You started out really strong with Twi's death, or what everyone thought was Twilight's death. There was the wonderful scene with Twi's friends as they joined together to ward off the pain and suffering, and then there was the great moment of realization for Celestia that Twilight WAS her child, even if she didn't give birth to Twi.

You did a good job with Celestia personally leading the strike team to strike against the insurgents and her moment of reunion with Twilight. And you also did a good job with the sense of hopelessness that Twi was undergoing and getting the groundwork set for what looked like was going to be a struggle to get her to lose the sense of worthlessness and give her a sense of hope.

And then shipping happened. It wasn't like a romance that had been slowly built over the past several chapters but it was something that seemed to just suddenly appeared. For the most part the story had been about Twi's relationship with Celestia with a sprinkling of Twi's relationship with her friends. However, the sudden development of the the shipping was, to me, rather jarring and felt just unnatural. To suddenly go from Celestia and Twi with a little Twi and her friends to focusing almost solely on Twi-Dash was large contributor to that.

To me the stories focus was completely blindsided by the shipping. Something that also hindered the stories rise to greatness was the fact that I felt like you could have deleted Rainbow Dash's name and put in any other name and it would have work just the same. I didn't feel like there was a strong sense of "This is Rainbow Dash." Partly I feel like that's because this part of story felt particularly rushed. The Twi-Celestia relationship seemed to all but evaporate from the story and only reappeared for a few brief moments that felt a little awkward and almost OCish for the Celestia you'd developed. Again it felt like two stories pressed into one.

It just didn't feel like the same story any more.

[errant]

1869927

I have to personally agree with your assessment. This was the first work of fiction I undertook to write, and even though I had (have?) raw talent and skill with language, obviously I lacked a real sense of timing and plot development when I introduced the element of shipping into this story.

In reality, you are correct that this reads like two separate stories. Eventide Falls was originally intended to encompass the plot from the beginning to Twilight's rescue and shortly thereafter. Her recovery, dealing with the loss of her magic and the development of a relationship between her and RD was slated to be material for a sequel. However, a few factors led me to essentially slap-dash tack that portion onto the end and make it a complete story by itself. Most important was the fact that I didn't feel this story was well-written or popular enough to really deserve a sequel and I decided to take what I learned by writing it and move to other projects. However, I'm too much of a sucker for happy endings and I couldn't leave Twilight without one, so I tried to make it up to a fictional character by giving her a love interest as her consolation for losing her self-defining magical abilities.

As you said, I feel this makes for a jarring shift. While I realize this now in retrospect, I thought it was a good idea at the time. I'm genuinely sorry that my lack of skill made this story less enjoyable than it could have been. However, I'm grateful that you read it, and more so for your constructive criticism and analysis. People like you pointing out my mistakes is the only reason I've improved, so thank you kindly.

[Treilacl]

1870252 Uh... you're welcome.
I found this after reading your Octy/Vynl story so I was a little surprised by the slapped on... ness... of this one because I know you know how to write a tale

As a 1st story I would say it's really good... except for the double story bit where it kinda collapsed under it's own weight of awesomeness that didn't show up... of course I can't blame you for being a sucker for happy endings... I am SOOO a sucker for dem as well

...also don't be so hard on yourself!

[Dee Forty-Five]

Damn! Everything I was about to say Treilacl said not even a day ago, and better at that. Ah well.

I think the writing of the early chapters was a bit choppy. Please don't take that as an insult--the later chapters were very engaging and more eloquently written, showing marked improvement over the course of a mere few weeks. And the early ones weren't unreadable by any means.

It seems like the earlier chapters could have been consolidated into larger increments, or had their events expanded upon. At the very least, I think the first two should have been fused together. The first chapter ends on a rather un-dynamic note.

The shipping kind of came out of left-field. It's not that it was badly done, but it seemed like you were juggling three important plots and themes (the anti-monarchists, Celestia's parental feelings for Twilight, and Twilight dealing with her missing horn) and then someone tossed in a fourth ball, and you focused so much on keeping the fourth one airborne you dropped the other three.

Some resolution on Celestia's end of things--especially concerning her protectiveness of Twilight--would have helped immensely. I was a little let down when I realized that Celestia walking in on Twilight and RD was the end of her character arc.

Of course, I always accentuate the negative in anything I comment on, so don't think this is a terrible piece by any means. I liked this story and thought it had some great interesting elements. Exploring the anti-monarchy sentiment against Celestia was good, and the moment at the end of chapter 6 when we learned that they took Twi's horn was heartbreaking and instantly hooked me on the story, earning a fave as well.

The fact that you didn't cop out at the end and give Twi her horn back, but still let the story end on a happy note, was a big plus in my book as well. Too often you read tragic fics where the author either doesn't have the guts to follow through with it, or they go off the deep end and kill/maim/psychologically destroy every member of the cast in horrible, brutal ways. This story struck that sweet spot where things got dark, and the consequences stuck, but it didn't become so dark as to become unreadable. The best kind, in my opinion.

So kudos to you!

[Tarlek]

1824822 6 hours? It only took me 30 minutes... Then again I read really fast...

[Mane-iac]

Looks like got out of his coma and left the hospital with no fanfare whatsoever, and didn't even get any fucking dialogue. I wonder if any of his friends acquaintances bothered visiting him.

I would say the overall summary of this fanfic's reason for being is: the importance of Twilight, her connection to her demographically similar friends, and Celestia's status as her mentor....with a few tiny, meaningless footnotes about why the most dedicated and supportive person in Twilight's life (an orphan whose whole fucking life revolves around her) only matters enough to exist within a few sentences, in the peripheral of the lives of the much more important characters.

If I had read this from start to finish, I would've likely hated every word, no matter how much time, effort, skill, or emotion was put into it. Fanfics like this demonstrate why I hate this fandom more often than love it, and why I will never be able to get back in touch with the good feelings the mane six once inspired.

[fanreader999999]

A mess