A dying Applejack is kept company by Twilight, but they receive a visitor who offers them an alternative they had yet to consider...
Written expressly for Equestria Daily's inaugural Writer's Training Grounds. Apologies in advance for the clipped, frenetic pacing of the story, but there was a hard limit of 1,500 words, and when you're as wordy as I am, that's very difficult to obey!
Now with an awesome audio adaptation by the talented Scribbler!
Cover art shamelessly swiped from Carnifex; modified version by Scribbler.
Chapters (1)
Wow...pretty damn good.
Two things.
1 - Memento Mori basically means "Remember your mortality." I don't really see how that has much to do with AJ getting a chance to live longer/forever (Vampirism. The cover art makes it quite obvious). That is, of course, unless the story is about the phrase itself and how everything has an end.
2 - There is already a story called Memento Mori. You may want to change the title to avoid confusion. Perhaps change the title to the English meaning of the phrase?
Twilight sounds like a bitch and a uncaring person she trys to sound nice but it doesn't work to me, and the reason fluttershy is a batpony is because of a spell by twilight, plus they become freindemies honestly I hate that.
I need more! I NEED AN ENDING!!!!
A word count limit like that is grueling. Having to account for every single word. Not being able to go in depth behind anything. Scary.
I guess it's a lesson to leaving things to implication.
Then again, I guess it's the Writer's Training Ground for a reason.
I think it's cute. And one can't help but like a Fluttershy that can shut Twi up on an argument point. I wish it was ten thousand words and went into why Twi and Flutters are at odds, and why 'Shy is back to being a bat. And I certainly wish we had time for proper AJ uncertainty and arguments. Because I really love the flow of the dialogue in this little vignette.
...Also, I demand that this happen, now that you're done with the prompt. Proceed with the extended director's cut.
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FiMFiction is littered with duplicate names. No surprise, given how many stories there are.
There's probably a dozen named 'Diamond in the Rough'.
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I agree, bring out the rest of the story!
Give me more or I will organize a mob and bring out the pitchforks and torches!
I agree. I would love to see more of this story, especially what happened afterwards.
There definitely needs to be more, It feels a bit cliffhanger-y (pardon the grammar), if you know what I mean...
I second the cliffhangery nature...and, to an extent, ANYONE being not-nice to Flutterbat is a bit...off. Their main problem seemed to be, you know, the uncontrollableness...
Okay, that was a poor excuse. Twilight should just ignore them and heal Applejack. I see no sense why alicorn power would mean interfering with natural order.
I think Twilight being able to heal her should not be mentioned, because the excuse why she should not is just out right terrible.
How is Twilight using her magic to heal Applejack bad but Fluttershy offer legal ?
Hi there. I hope you don't mind, but I liked this fic so much I have put together an audio version on YouTube.
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derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/3/19/274317__safe_rainbow+dash_animated_sonic+rainboom_ohmygosh.gif
Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!
Thank you so much! I'm very flattered that you liked the story, even moreso that you decided to make a full-blown audio adaptation! I'm actually kind of embarrassed; I don't think the story is that good (due chiefly to how clipped and short it is; a significant amount of material was cut for the sake of meeting the word count for EQD's writing prompt), but other people seem to like it.
But yes, I'm completely blown away by this. I still can't believe you did it, or that you did it so well!
Sound effects! Individual voices! Clocks! 
You have a lovely voice! I intend to update the fic to point people toward your reading. I hope you don't mind!
Due to positive reader response, both from you and others, I've decided to rewrite Memento Mori as it was originally planned, in a fully-expanded "Director's Cut" that will be added to this story as a new "chapter." It will be significantly longer than the original text, and might be less well-suited to a dramatic reading, but I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks again!
I don't understand why the other princesses don't let Twilight heal Applejack.
It's not their business and to imagine that they say it would be against nature while they live much longer than the average pony seems off.
Also, that doesn't sound like the kind Celestia and Luna we know.
Otherwise, great story!
MORE
WE NEED MORE.
I read the story and listen to the audio at the same time. I can tell you, I nearly cried at the end. Nice work, very well written. And Scribbler, bless her soul, did a great job narrating and adding sound effects. I hope you both are able to collaborate together on more stories.
Um... what? The princesses refuse to allow Twilight to save her best friend and fellow Element of Harmony?
Fluttershy is still a bat?
Twilight hates her friend?
Elements of Harmony still work even though they obviously aren't friends anymore?
Um... yeah, no. Sorry. Well-written and all, but the lack of logic makes me nopenopenope out the window.
I wouldn't expect Applejack to accept. Nor Twilight to withhold help from her friends after all she's learned. Cute story, however.
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It never says they arent friends anymore. And the elements of harmony are only 'working' in the sense that they still represent thr elements. The princesses wont let twilight help for a reason, the procedure is delicat and it could cause a worse death than the one before her if she is to mess up. Celestia has faith in her, but she still needs to teach twilight the concept of letting go; sometimes the best move to make is to lrt things happen. Even if twilight could successfully remove the tumors, applejack would probably contract it again. Twilight doesnt hate fluttershy, she just had more pressing matters to attend to. She was most likely too busy trying to research a cure for her friend that she couldnt take the time to walk out to the forest to invite fluttershy personally. She may have met the others in town and they just tagged along because they just happened to find out.
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Who said Fluttershy's option was legal? Twilight seemed to indicate it wasn't. It's basically being presented as Fluttershy being willing to do something illegal (and more expressly forbidden by Princess Celestia) and Twilight not. That's the difference here.
Mind you, I agree that the 'natural order' thing is pretty weak. I can think of several better reasons for Celestia to prevent Twilight from healing her, like offering miraculous healings having led to problems for her in the past or Applejack just being too old to survive such surgery even done perfectly and Twilight trying just going to be killing her friend.
Very good, though I think Twilight would, if asked, perform the procedure, and damn the Princesses anyway. (And the Princesses probably wouldn't have said no anyway.) But then, given you only had a very limited word count to play with, certain liberties had to be taken. So, that said, it was very nice, and I am agreement with some of the above, it should get an extended version without the prompt limits at some point, if you ever feel up to it.
An interesting tale on the choice between death and undeath, except showing Fluttershy's vampirism as a sort of melding of traditional vampire stories and her canon magical mix-up with apple-devouring fruit bats. She wouldn't be the sort of vampire that consumed blood, but in this particular case, I suppose it was Apple juice.
5281701 *ba dum tssss*
I lol'd
Um, If you read this please tell me if you will make a sequel to this, because it's really good.
I've listened to scribbler's reading and... wow. Chilling, yet heart breaking at the same time. A very good job, sir/ma'am (i don't know your gender so i'll just hit both bases).
I watch Scribblers audio tale like thing and REALLY hope you countine this because its interesting and cliffhangery
I always love a good vampony story. Unfortunately, hardly any ever get finished. Pretty much my only gripe with this one is the lack of background information. I understand it's difficult to squeeze enough information into a word cap, but perhaps you could expand on this someday? Like... What happened that caused the falling out between Twilight and Fluttershy? Does she just blame herself for Fluttershy's condition (since I assume it was a mutation of her own spell that caused it) and is just projecting?
I came across this through the Audio adaption and neglected to give the positive review here. Its a great story and the Author deserves recognition for a job very well done.
Ive heard several comments over the years that stories don't answer all the questions or tie everything together at the end.
I thourally blame modern television and movies for the belief that absolutely everything has to be answered in a story. This is a cancer that prevents the growth of storytelling in future Authors. The proof of a good story is that it makes you think. When your done reading it, the reader spends real time pondering questions about that story. What could have happened before, what could have happened after. This thought and imaginings are the soil that new stories grow from. When an Author answered all the questions they provide dead soil to future generations. Thought and imagination is a muscle. The more its used, the stronger it becomes. The poor excuses we have for movies and TV shows, the reliance of reusing old stories from the past may be rooted in this sad fact.
My 2 cents.
The Monk
“To say that Twilight Sparkle went bugfuck would be like saying the Incredible Hulk had some mild anger management issues.” -DustTraveller