Ever since her ascension, Twilight has been having the same nightmares.
About a pale mare who shines brighter than anything she's ever seen.
This is an entry to the barcast's Halloween in April Contest. Thank you very much to wishcometrue and Flashgen for their help with editing and pre-reading. Any errors are because of last minute changes I made without consulting them.
Hello! Thank you for the entry, I look forward to reading it.
Finally, some proper uses of mythology here.
The twist hit like me like a truck, I love it.
Great story! The creepy imagery and growing dread was well written and I liked the integration of Biblical mythology.
Excellent read. The dreamlike quality to your writing really brought this one to life.
10197756 I'm dumb and don't get it. Can you please explain.
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Twilight has dreams of Celestia as a seraphim, and Celestia tells her she isn't, and she really isn't.
But the Celestia of those dreams is revealed to be twisted to reflect a child's vision of a traumatic scene.
Here's what happened:
Mutible ponies, grouped up with Celestia.
They're all in deep shit.
The words said by dream Celestia reflect what little Twilight gathered from this conversation.
She goes supernova, cooking the ponies shes with.
It comes together. The seraphim Celestia she sees in her dreams is a distortion of Celestisa ablaze, surrounded by the other ponies on fire, seeming to be joined as their many wings and heads are the only thing identifiable from the blinding light of Celestia and the flames.
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That's a really fascinating perspective on the story! Now, I very much believe in death of the author so the following is simply my personal take on the piece, but for your interest:
She really was an angel, she convinced twilight otherwise, and the event in her dream did happen, but it turns out the fear came from seeing them later, after the assassination attempt. The multiple wings and eyes and faces are literally what Celestia genuinely looks like
10224229 That's what I was thinking
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I didn't realize you are the author. I guess the ending was phrased like that for a reason.
The opening of the story imparts a feeling of knowing, but mystery all at the same time. Like distant familiarity, and I love that. The way that Twilight looks at the figure initially reminds me of the biblical description of angels. Beings beyond our understanding, that looking into directly is like gazing into a formless, yet winged, sun. However, looking into this sunlike visage is akin to being planted on the surface of the sun. To look into an angel is to incinerate yourself in holy fire beyond your understanding, and the way you described this winged being was nothing short of that and then some.
This hit me HARD when I read it, because it's such a perfect and succinct way to describe this. Twilight idolized Celestia throughout her whole life, but now in her maturing into a high position, and soon the highest, she sees through her.
There are no words. This is perfect.
I'll be completely honest. This, in combination with the dream that came before it, brought me to tears with how good this was.
I was going to quote specifically what I liked, but I would just start putting the whole story in here. So instead I'll speak generally. You have the fantastic habit of making the ordinary tense, and the scary absolutely punishing. Celestia being like a mother figure to Twilight came with a motherly glow, but you made it perfectly plain that this glow had turned into a holy storm of supernovae that obliteration Twilight in her dreams and terrorized her in her waking life.
Celestia before gave Twilight the impression of dread, an angry god peering down at her with contempt. But Twilight saw through her. Twilight thought she was an angel, but Celestia in that one conversation convinced her otherwise. But, Twilight dreamed the next night about that same angel, the sun, purging all its conspirators in fire. Celestia had fooled Twilight again and had used her weakness with her nightmares to blind her as to the sun's true form. She really was an angel after all, but that only means that in time, Twilight will ascend too. That last line, about the single benevolent mouth, touched me. That single mouth is the one that lied to Twilight, the lie she believed. That's why she felt serene in looking at it, even though that mouth was sending its enemies into holy oblivion.
This was masterful, and it's nothing short of, nor an exaggeration to say, this is the best thing I've read on the sight, dare I say the best thing I've read period. There were more than a handful of moments where my jaw was agape in awe at the talent exhibited here. It brought tears down my cheeks and sheer inspiration to my very core. If I could ever write something a third as good as this, it would be towering leaps and exponential bounds ahead of anything I've made before it.
If that is Celestia's true form, what that really be such a bad thing if she only unleashes that fire on ponies who do bad things?
Your review is done: My litte Reviews & Feedback
Something about the writing reminds me of Fallen London and Sunless Skies.
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Because you have to worry about what, exactly, will count as "bad things".
Also, this makes me worry about Flurry Heart. Worry a lot.
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Got it.
Wow.
I have to say, I absolutely adore your perspective on the princesses. They've given me a lot to think about in terms of portraying them as more than mortal. One of these days I'm going to read Incandescent, Seraphim, and Somewhere Between Heaven And Earth all at once, then just spend a few hours meditating on how to expand my views of the characters. The beauty of your prose will make that an easy thing to do.
Hot damn, I am so very into this. :D
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These are equally plausible to me, and if i had to guess at the authorial intent (which i dont lol) it would be that twilight's stress, childhood repressed trauma, and knack for reading history leads her to project her fears of the future and position onto Celestia. After all, if celestia were a seraphim at this point, there wouldnt be a point hiding it from her, and twilight turning into one would be the only "seraphim real" situation that would trigger these dreams. So it's probably just her mental stress combined with the repressed memory that Celestia can actually be cruel and vengfeul, like FarmFresh says
However, if Seraphim are real and Celestia is one, not only does this fall into the unsettling pattern of Celestia being apart from ponykind, it also turns her into more of a force of nature than evil, which is cool in its own way, her having lost any connection to her past self and being the avatar of the Sun/State. But it also implies that since Twilight is not actually becoming one, that even when the show answered the question of Twilight being immortal like Celestia and Luna, they were STILL hiding a terrible truth from her, which is super neato.
Please continue this, it shows great potential in my eyes
Exquisitely haunting, all the more so because obeying Celestia is so hard to avoid. Especially when she tells you not to worry about something. Perhaps the only way to improve this might have been seeing Luna in one of the dreams trying to soothe Twilight in her own way… or at least downplay the suspicions of her sister. Still, Twilight has a much different dynamic with Luna than with Celestia; focusing on student and teacher may have been the better choice.
In any case, thank you for this. I’m glad I finally got to it.