A story I wrote quite some time ago... · 9:02pm Apr 27th, 2015
I'm going to be publishing a new story today... except that I lied to you twice there. Actually it's an an old story I wrote a long time ago—around the same time I wrote Never So Far Away to be honest. And what's more, I'm not "officially" publishing it via the moderation queue and all that jazz. For the moment, this one is just for people who are reading this blog post and feel like clicking the link at the end.
Why did I never publish? I don't know. I guess I wasn't in the best state from a mental health point of view at the time. And, well, I ended up in a cycle of perfectionism. I had to respond to ever pre-reader comment, address every imperfection both real and imagined. Sigh. People had said some very nice things about Never So Far Away and I felt under so much pressure to follow up. Eventually it ended up as a source of stress rather than something I enjoyed and so it all petered out.
Time has passed now. I've put some distance between the me now and the idiot past-me of then. So I think it's high time I just published those words. It would be a shame to let them go to waste.
Now, I think the story is best read relatively quickly, in a few reading sessions say, so I was reluctant to release it a chapter at a time. But it's clear that if I took that approach I'd never manage to be happy with all the chapters at once, but by doing this a chapter at a time, there's a chance I can finish by going one step at a time. So I'm posting them one at a time and when they're all there, maybe I'll post to the site at large.
What you do is up to you. Read it only if you want to. The story is called The Price for Luna.
The Summer Solstice approaches and Equestria prepares for the welcome break, but in Canterlot Celestia plans in secret for the return of Nightmare Moon. Her duty is clear: take the five known Elements of Harmony and cast her own sister from the world forever. So what if her heart shatters into a million pieces? A fair price for the safety of all.
Yet as the hour approaches, Celestia’s resolve weakens as she is haunted by memories of happier times. She starts to entertain an insane, maybe treasonous, plan, but a plan that might just return her sister to her.
But no plan, however well thought out, ever survives execution and as matters spiral out of control strengths sequestered deep within others will surprise even the celestial princess herself. As you well know, this story has a happy ending but it is the journey that matters.
PS: The moment I hit publish, I'm probably going to be vanishing from fimfiction to hide in the finest traditions of Fluttershy. Don't expect me back to answer any comments for a while.
Ooooh. Gunna read.
See you when you get back!
Y'all should be reading this! It's awesome (and Powered should really be giving it the full Fimfic rollout, especially so I can signal boost it).
...also, I'm sorry I was never more help with the reading/editing stuff... (u_u);
To people who haven't read it yet:
The story is really good.
No. Seriously. Really good
Stop reading this and go read it instead.
Now, to the rest of you:
I've pre-read it ages ago and am sorry for inducing some of the indecision and paralysis that robbed you of its magnificence for so long. I will offer an interesting tidbit about that pre-reading process, though: The wrangling about character motivations went so deep that I felt compelled to write an argument for a particular interpretation in the form of a 2500 word short story. With Dotted Line in it.
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Maybe after part 3 is done? Parts 2 and 3 were the ones I was never quite happy with. It should be more or less plain sailing after that.