//------------------------------//
// Epilogue 
// Story: Internal Darkness 
// by Silver Sorcerer 
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Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all associated characters, settings and stories are the rightful subjects of Hasbro, the HUB, Studio B, and Lauren Faust. 

Epilogue

It was some time before they began venturing into his private chambers. The summer was just beginning when they received word about the changes in Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle would become the next princess and rule Equestria while Shining Armor returned to his duties as Captain of the Royal Guard. The others returned to their previous jobs in Ponyville, only to be advisors to Twilight when she needed their assistance. Though everything was somewhat back to normal, it was going to be as normal as it possible could get. Realizing that, the four of them finally agreed to enter Magicon's magical domains.

Trim and Garden ventured into the basement while Littlemore and Fresh rose to the tower. They weren't exactly sure what they would find or what they were even going to do with his things: donate them, sell them, store them? Impossible to know as the husband and wife slowly climbed the stairs they took deep breaths and prepared themselves for whatever awaited them in that room.

Unlocking and opening the door they saw that the room was untouched since that night and slowly began searching through the items to see what the unicorn possessed and what could be saved or sold. Fresh proceeded to the armoire while Littlemore examined the desk. As he looked over the papers and books scattered on the desk he noticed that the drawer was slightly ajar. Cautiously opening it he saw a scroll and as he touched it, floated out of the drawer onto the desk and opened itself for Littlemore to read, as if it would only respond to him.

"Fresh come here," he called.

"What-oh," she noticed the letter and held onto his hooves. "I suppose this is what Trim meant by 'final preparations'."

"We'll read it together," he whispered and she nodded. They read it slowly as tears streamed down their faces.

My Dear Littlemore,

I do not know where I will be when you read this but you must understand that I write this out of pure compassion for you, Fresh Mint, Garden Hedge, and Trim Tram. You may share this with them as you wish but I ask that you keep this information and this letter private and keep it here in the mansion. As I write these words, I know that my final moments are approaching from Twilight Sparkle and most likely a dozen other ponies bent on ending me and my reign. I do not know what the outcome will be but I must implore you that should the outcome be disastrous to me I want you and the other servants to tend to the estate like it is your home. You will find my will in the bottom drawer of my desk in my bedroom. I ask that you do as instructed but are not required to. I want to write this letter to be my final private words to you.

I am the murder of Princesses Celestia and Luna. You probably aren't surprised by this because I assume you speculated it. Well, in any case, that is the first truth. The second, I am a coltcuddler. Shining Armor and I spent one night together which was the best night of my life. It turned sour afterwards when we were discovered and I had to erase memories and later on, duel Shining Armor and throw him into jail. The third, though I know you know this I must admit it still, I am a follower of Red-Blood. I have followed his philosophy and murdered the two greatest alicorns in all of Equestria, both past and present. You may have liked them but I did not and was glad to be rid of them. The fourth, the reason my master took me under his wing was due to the fact that I had the dark mark on my soul. You know my mother died and my apartment in Manehattan burned due to an apparent accident. But that is not the case. The real truth is that I murdered my mother with a dark curse after getting into a heated argument with her. The fire was a side-effect of the spell. My master sensed my powerful magic and knew my potential and instructed me in the ways of Red-Blood, darkness, deception, and ultimately murder. The fifth, at the time of this writing, I can confirm that I am crazy. Literally, crazy. I should be confined to a mental asylum for my unstable mind. I am haunted by my past and have lost my mind from it. It is through a great struggle that I maintain my sanity long enough to write this to you. Unfortunately, I will probably be put out of my insanity soon enough which might explain why I am having prolonged moments of sanity to write to you. 

As my final moments near I beg you not to obstruct the ponies who are after me. You will want to help me and serve me in my last moments of life but I beg you not to. I don't want you, Fresh, Garden, or Trim to get hurt. You have been so loyal and dedicated to me and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I saw you hurt by these ponies. What I ask you to do is carry out what is written in the will and preserve the mansion as if I still lived in it. I am allowing you access into my private basement. In the second closet on the left side in just past the entrance hall, the one that is always empty is the elevator that will lead you down to the basement. It requires magic to work properly and can only accommodate one pony. The stairs to the basement is below the center floor tile in the entrance hall. It is slightly discolored and has a small 'M' monogrammed onto it. Remove the tile and you will find the staircase to the basement. Be careful when you go down and do not be scared by what you find down there. I assure you nothing will harm you. 

Finally, I want to thank you, Fresh Mint, Garden Hedge, and Trim Tram for your loyalty, dedication, and pure compassion to me. You were the only ponies who brought out the good inside me and kept it alive. Without you, I am sure that I would not have been the compassionate and intelligent pony I am. You were more than family to me. Though I know I will not be joining you in the afterlife let the Supreme Being or god know that I had love in my heart and it was for you four. Thank you for that and may you all live long, happy, and prosperous lives. 

Yours Forever,



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Author's Notes

Well, there it is. After months of writing and exhausting creative energies, you have my story. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it. But now the story comes to a close and now comes the method behind the madness and an analysis of the story, some of its elements, and what the future may hold.

Firstly, I want to thank all of you wonderful readers who took the time out of your lives to read the story. A bigger thank you to those who commented on the story. I know I never really responded to the comments and that's mostly because of my belief to keep author-reader interaction to a minimum until the story is finished. Now that the story is finished I am open to answering all questions and suggestions on how to improve the story. If you have any questions or suggestions, fill free to post them in the comment section or PM (especially if they are plot-related as I don't want future readers to have major spoilers in the comment section). If you thought it was a good story let me know, if not, let me know as well. I value feedback and constructive criticism.

Now as for the story itself it's time for some explanations. Let's start with our main character: Magicon. He was based on a character that I created for MLP Forums (an awesome Brony site, btw). Link. I use him in Role-Play's and he's not as dark as the character you read in the story. But the Magicon in the story is very dark and quite evil. I didn't design him to be the pitiable villain and I hope he doesn't come off that way. Though you can show empathy towards him, he is not meant for you to sympathize with him (because he is such a dark character that we can't really relate to). But what we can relate to the fact that there is a little bit of darkness inside all of us and Magicon is the symbol of that. He is also the symbol of what happens if you let the darkness overcome you. I guess you could call that a message, I don't really know.

I never designed the story to have a message. I designed the story to focus and explore a dark character and how they became dark and how and why they remained that way. I never really based my story on any others in-particular, though I'm sure someone can find a similar story like this. But I do hope it was original or at least uncommon because I don't see many stories out there that focus on the villain so extensively.

As for our heroes, well they're not the focus of the story. The only reason they are veen in the story is to present a challenge to Magicon and show the depths of his darkness more clearly. It probably would've also been very boring and depressing to just see the dark character 24/7. Light characters were needed and so I included them, but only two are truly significant: Shining Armor and Twilight.

I know I was unorthodox with my relationship pairings between Shining and Magicon and I'm sure many of you found it odd if not gross. But you have to admit that it did make for a great story and real hatred between the two of them afterwards. Their dialogue and relationship practically wrote itself, it was just so good and dramatic. Cadance stemmed from that relationship drama but she also had her problems with Magicon. But in the end it is mostly the wedge that Magicon caused between her and Shining's marriage that became the crucial issue with her.

Twilight was obviously the most victimized by Magicon's actions. Practically everything she knew and loved was destroyed or damaged by Magicon. The one thing I regret with her is showing more of her mental trauma, especially in the latter half of the story. It would've been very interesting to see her breakdown further after the truth is revealed about her brother and beyond that. I wish I had done more with that.

Now as for the princesses please don't kill me. I am a huge Luna fan and I appreciate Celestia, but their fates were unavoidable in the story. Otherwise it wouldn't have made everything possible. Magicon wouldn't have been haunted by them nor would the girls have been brought to Canterlot and Twilight wouldn't have run away completely grief stricken and half-insane. It had to be done for the story so I'm sorry if you were mad or upset with it, but that was the way I wanted the story and that was the way it had to be.

As for the future, I don't have any sequels planned. Though I suppose I could write a good story about the effect Magicon had on all of them (especially Twilight, that'd be interesting), but as of right now I don't have the time nor the creative energy to write one. Plus, sequels are either really good or really bad and I don't really want to risk it being bad, so I may just keep this as a one timer and leave it at that. I also have an idea about a prologue-type story that would have Magicon in his younger years and his training at the mansion with his master (who we never really know, I don't even know) and the relationship he creates with the servants. But again, I am just not able to do it right now. Maybe sometime in the future, we'll see. I'll be sure to let you all know.

Overall, I am very pleased with how the story turned out and hope you all enjoyed it. If you did enjoy it please pass it on to your friends and whoever would be interested in reading it. I also want to thank you all for reading it. I know my writing is dry and boring at times (I am a minimalist writer), but I do hope it was good and enjoyable. On a side note, I never planned it to be nearly 50 chapters, but just shows once you're creative who knows where you'll end up. I am proud of the time and effort that I put into the story and what came out of it. Once again, thank you! :D