1000! · 3:08pm May 20th, 2018
If you enjoy Black Dawn and it's sequel Divided Souls, I suggest you read this blog as it goes into detail about some of the stuff I had planned for it.
Anyway, my longest story, The Song of The Unbroken: Black Dawn just reached 1000 views! I started writing it on the first of February 2013 and finished it seventh of January 2015. It sure took a while to write, and I almost gave it up several times, but I stuck through and finished it at 92.851 words, making it my longest story on this site. I originally aimed from 100.000 words, and I came pretty close to it, although if I hadn't stopped the story where I did, It might've reached 150.000 words or more. If you've read the sequel Divided Souls, you might know what Anton, Lilly and Willow has set their sights on The Crystal Empire.
In my original draft of Black Dawn, it was set to end once they got there and the true identity of the villain Thanatos was revealed, and Willow died. Since I cancelled said story, I might as well tell you what happened. The trio get to The Crystal Empire, and set up camp in one of the many buildings of the city. One night, Willow confesses he has developed feelings from Lilly, and he acuses Anton of trying to keep her for himself. Anton statest he has no interest in Lilly besides friendship, but Willow doesn't believe him, and after the argument he storms off into the night.
They try to find him, but he's gone, and so they press on alone The next day they reach the castle, and enter it. After some looking around, they come across a room called "The Sparkle Archives", where they find every single letter Twilight wrote to Celestia during the first time of the show. Naturally, neither Lilly nor Anton knows who Twilight Sparkle is, but Anton is drawn to something; a bookcase with dusty old tomes. One book in particular, titled "Ashes to ashes, Dust to dust" cathes his eyes, since that sentece was something he had his brother Mattias used as children. He tries to pull out the book, but it only goes halfway out, then stops.
The book case moves back, building up dust in the movement, and opens up into a secret room. Anton enters it first, and finds a peculiar sight.
A armory filled with human armor and weapons.
He finds a note in the center of the room, written in Swedish, adressed to him. It becomes clear that Mattias, or Dust as he was known in Equestria, was aware that Anton would show up one day. If you remember, Anton saw his lost brother in an alleway in his home town before he was transported into Equestria. This would have been explained in the story Moonshimmer Island, where Dust found a second amulet like the one he wore called Fenrir. Upon touching it, he's teleported back to his human world, lost and confused and just in time for two police officers to take note of him. He escapes, but they follow him into an alleway, and Dust used his magic to take them out.
Right after that, Anton found one of the officers and saw his brother before they both where teleported away by unseen powers.
So, Dust was sure that his younger brother would show up in Equestria, but he had no idea when. So he built the secret room to help him in case he showed up after Dust's death, which he eventually did. In the letter, Dust also mentions that Anton used to train amateur archery when he was younger, and he left him a bow and arrows along with the other clothing and armor. It is here that Anton recieves the weapons and armor he wears in the cover art for Black Dawn.
The room also holds Dust's old sword, The Lullablade, named by Luna in Moonshimmer Island, and his old journal; the one he wrote in during the epilogue of Dust to Dust, where he confesses to the murder of both Rarity and Twilight.
At that point in the story, Thanatos appears and steals the journal. Anton is already sure that this character is in fact not his brother, and he becomes even more sure when Thanatos thanks him for leading him to the journal. If it truly was Dust, he would've known it was there all along. Thanatos flees, and Anton gives chase, and they end up having a sword duel on top of the tower, which Anton looses. He manages to stab Thanatos in the chest, and Thanatos then sheds the image of Dust and shows their real form; The alicorn called Aurora, seen in Dust to Dust.
Anton charges her, and they struggle for a while. Eventually, Aurora takes flight with Anton still clutching to her body, but he looses his grip and tumbles down the tower. He's sure this is the end, until he spots something red in the air.
It's Willow.
He swops down to Anton and grabs ahold of him, doing his best to stay airborn despite his disfigured wings. Finally he manages to drop Anton safely on the ground, but he pays the price for his heroic feat by crashing and getting mortally injured. He dies in Anton's arms, saying he's happy that he saved the life of his best friend. He tries to apologize for his earlier behaviour, but Anton tells him to forget about it. He dies, and that would've been the end of Black Dawn.
That was in the first draft, in the final draft things unfolded a bit differently, in that Willow does save Anton and gets injured, but he doesn't die. Theres's also a fourth character with them; a mare they met in Manehattan callin herself Tarnished Silver. In this final draft, the find a trolley and takes it back to Ponyville, but that isn't revealed until the end of Divided Souls, at the end of Crescent's story line(yes, he and Sawblade survived), when in the midst of battle, a trolley pulls into the Ponyville station, and Crescent sees a human carrying another pony, besides two more standing next to him.
There's no time for them to greet or explain, however, as the air is torn apart by lightning, and suddenly, something appears on the ground between them; a second human. Jennifer. Anton's girlfriend.
And that would've been the end of Divided Souls, ending on a pretty monumental cliff hanger.
One day I might write down everything I had planned for the series from start to finish, but right now this'll have to do. Still, it's fun to finally let ut my ideas and plans. Let's just say I have a lot of ideas that I never got to write, and The Song of The Unbroken would've spanned three, maybe even four, stories as long, if not longer, than Black Dawn. It would've been an epic tale, let me tell you.
